B007IIXYQY EBOK (75 page)

Auriane journeyed steadily west, into the desolate fir-clad hill country. She made no fires and stayed well away from the ridge trails used by itinerant traders. Often she paused on high ground to climb a tree and carefully study the dusky purple shadows of the deeply folded hills behind her to make certain she was not pursued—she sensed the presence of tree spirits and elves rustling in those melancholy deeps, but no human enemy was to be seen—though at times her loneliness was so vast she almost wished for one.

The cold was cruel and penetrating. For shelter the first night she found a shallow cave; on the next she fashioned a crude lean-to of pine branches, meadow grasses, and Berinhard’s saddle blanket. For two days she had no food but a portion of a loaf of oat-millet bread and goat cheese she had brought to the Assembly. As she passed distant homesteads, the air was filled with the rank smell of slaughtering. This was the time of year known as the Days of Blood, when the breeding animals that could not survive the food shortages of winter were sacrificed to Fria. The people feasted on the meat and salted the rest to sustain them through the snows. Occasionally she passed far-off wisps of blue smoke and heard joyous shouts.

In all that passed in the last days, hardest for her to bear was the shame she knew she caused Athelinda.

For the second time in my life, I try my poor mother past the limits any mortal should have to bear.
And when the great war comes, she will be in misery and alone.

As she came to lands where she was less likely to be known, she was not so careful about concealing herself and she passed close to some of the village celebrations. She was treated kindly and offered meat and mead. Her warrior’s ring drew curious looks. Once she was asked if she was the Maid of the Chattians who had carried out storied deeds. She denied it because she wanted no talk of her to linger in these places, but she was amazed she was known this far from her own village.

On the fourth day, snow laid a dusty coverlet of white over the hills. She felt she, too, drifted into the deathlike sleep of winter, but with no promise of a joyful reawakening in spring.

She was crossing the outskirts of the lands of the horse-loving Tencteres when she halted at a lonely homestead, meaning to seek further directions to the winter sanctuary of Ramis. An ancient farm-wife emerged with waddling gait from her round hut, meaning to assist the lone traveler. She wore a long, swaying necklace of lynx’s teeth for protection against ghosts. Her eyes were slits, almost invisible in folds of fat; she seemed a storehouse of unpleasant secrets. The old woman pointed north, toward twin barren hills so smooth and even they might have been giant’s barrows, and told Auriane that if she passed straight between them, then rode on for half a day at a brisk trot, she could not miss Alder Lake, where the greatest of Holy Ones dwelled but was seldom seen.

A little village has grown up about the place, the farm-wife told her, peopled with those who awaited the high one’s favor. “But mostly,” she added, “our Lady disappoints them.”

Auriane thought grimly, this old woman knows of whom I speak. Ramis has made a lifelong habit of sowing disappointment.

The farm-wife assured he- pilgrims had marked the path well with small shrines—piles of smooth stones, sticks of yarrow bundled together, collections of hares’ skulls. Then she finished with a warning: “If you’ve any mother-wit you’ll turn that horse round and go home. You’re comely and young and strong—she’ll want you for a slave. She’ll change you into a frog to make music for her at night. That one’s got the hounds of Hel at her beck and call, all tame as fat geese feeding from her hand.”

Auriane thanked her and moved on. Beyond the two hills she came to an avenue of hard-packed earth that parted a sea of snow-feathered sedge and broom; here she urged Berinhard to a gallop. As the stallion began to tire, they surmounted a rise thick with hardy rowan shrubs; she knew from their even rows that they had been planted deliberately—the rowan tree offered powerful protection against harmful magic. She tautened with excitement; her destination must be close. Then suddenly, below her, was Alder Lake, black, shrouded and still; the vapor drifting off it made it appear to exhale ghosts. She realized the lake must be fed by a warm spring. She looked on the scene for long moments, feeling wrapped in an old, familiar peace, as though she nested in the palm of Fria. At the center of the lake was a grassy island roughly as large as a thrall’s field, or what one ox could plow in a day. Three pinewood lodges occupied it; a red-stained stag’s skull was affixed above the door of the grandest one. A thin thread of smoke issued from a fire before the door.

This central lodge, she surmised, must be the winter dwelling place of the Veleda, she who is the One Who Sees. It was a house that expressed Ramis’ soul—austere, remote, but accessible—if one had patience and was willing to travel over dark water to reach her. Unlike her predecessor in the office—a fearful old woman who sequestered herself in a high tower, was never seen unveiled, and spoke to the people only through intermediaries—Ramis walked openly among the villagers, allowing petitioners to speak to her face to face, while actively discouraging those who tried to worship her as a goddess on earth. Auriane had heard a tale of two Batavian tribesmen who had traveled here, dragging with them a captured Roman legionary soldier whom they proudly offered to Ramis as a human sacrifice. But Ramis was greatly offended. She ordered the victim set free and even gifted the Roman captive with a casket filled with silver coins. Then she admonished the Batavians, telling them it was unfortunate that, long ago, man forgot the true meaning of the highest sacrifice. Wodan himself provides the noblest example, she told them—you must sacrifice yourself to yourself. And then she drove them from her presence.

A temporary village, a motley collection of dwellings made of turf and hides and broken carts, was strewn randomly about the lake. The people who traveled here to await an audience with Ramis thrived off the food and gifts brought to the Veleda by wealthy chiefs who came to beg her for oracles; Ramis took what little she needed to live and distributed the rest among the petitioners.

Auriane stopped when she came to the bolted gate in the low fence of staves that ran about the precinct; clearly strangers were not to pass until admitted.

There was a festival atmosphere in this odd place where people came not to live but to wait. She heard the gallop of many drums and saw through the tents the flash of brightly robed dancers. Here were women and men from diverse tribes; she saw a warrior of the Suebians with his black hair coiled into a tight knot over one ear, shepherding a child with some crippling ailment. Two snowy-skinned, black-haired women of the tribe of the Sitones, wearing peaked caps and cowrie-shell necklaces, looked up at her from a board game, their eyes glimmering with magic. An aristocratic Gallic woman with knotted hair held in place with golden netting and a rich checkered robe that brushed the ground was carrying a lapdog high on her breast while she strolled about trailed by her two maids. Auriane even saw men of Decius’ smaller stature, who must have been of the Roman lands of the far south. Everywhere cattle, goats and geese wandered about unmolested, for none here ate the flesh of beasts.

Auriane pulled the rope of a bronze bell attached to the sagging gate.

A woman stirred within one of the tents, then strode purposefully toward her. There was a heavy silence about this woman, as if she had long ago decided to commune as little as possible with fellow human creatures. Her coloring was that of a woodland creature, from her great, round, mourning eyes speckled with forest colors, to the red-brown freckles on her nose, her sienna-and-gray mottled robe, the fox fur thrown over it for warmth. Hers was a big-boned and homely face with an oddly contrasting sensuous mouth, yet Auriane guessed no husband or lover had ever known that thin, hard body; about her was the air of the harsh celibacy of priestly service. She identified herself as Helgrune, Ramis’ servant.

“The granddaughter of Gandrida has come.” Helgrune said it joylessly, as a flat statement of fact. She extended a hand. “Cross this threshold in health.”

“Blessings and luck to you,” Auriane said, inclining her head, trying not to sound too wary. “But how do you know me?”

“I do not. It is
she
who knows you.” Helgrune nodded faintly in the direction of the island in the lake. Auriane guessed from this obstinately brief explanation that her coming on this day had been prophesied.

Helgrune unfastened the gate, then hesitated, looking darkly at Auriane’s sword. “Iron belongs in the earth. You must put it back.”

Auriane protested and told her whose sword it was.

“Baldemar is beloved of us. Still it is a sword and must stay outside. Wrap it carefully in linen and bury it just outside the enclosure. It will come to no harm.”

Reluctantly, Auriane obeyed. Then she rubbed Berinhard’s coat with charcoal to darken it so the horse would not be recognized by anyone stalking her, and put him into the rude stables.

She then began what Helgrune told her was a purification time. Not only had she been polluted with iron, she was polluted with blood. Auriane was tempted to object that it was enemy’s blood, but she sensed that would not matter here. She was secluded in a lodge constructed of rowan branches and given only special grains raised within the seeresses’ sanctuary to eat. She drank springwater in which gemstones had been steeped; their various properties drew poisons from heart, lung and belly, and cleansed past, present and future. Daily she bathed in the holy waters of the lake. As one day, then another passed, her unease intensified. Why should Ramis concern herself with the troubles of a woman who long ago had scorned her?

Once a day a petitioner would be rowed to the island and taken before Ramis. From the talk about her she realized there was no readily determined pattern by which they were called; often a newer arrival would be taken before those who languished here as long as four moons. It was said Ramis made the wealthy travelers wait longer. But Auriane thought Ramis’ reasonings more obscure than that; she saw a British chieftain, his hair matted with lime paste, his neck and arms heavily laden with gold—a man possessed of a solemn, quiet intensity—be admitted after only fourteen days.

When Auriane had been in this place but five days, Helgrune roused her from her bed of rushes at midnight. Startled awake and blinded by the torch thrust into her face, she forgot where she was.

Where is Decius?
Tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered.

Helgrune said only, “It is time.” She nodded toward the island.

“Now?” Auriane whispered. “In the grimmest part of night?”

Helgrune would not answer; her manner suggested Auriane purposefully feigned ignorance. Brusquely she gave Auriane a long dress of white linen weighted at the hem with stones of amber, and told her to take off her shoes, though the ground was cold. Then, moving with ceremonial care, she laid a white cat-skin over Auriane’s shoulders.

Auriane and Helgrune then walked to the lake, flanked by two torch-bearing apprentices; two more stood ready by a coracle tied at the bank. What was the meaning of this? Night journeys were fraught with evils; they exposed you to spell-workings and all the unholy things that seeped up from deep in the earth when darkness hugged the land.

Her terror would have grown unmanageable except that she sensed the others awakening about her counted this some unusual honor. Those who were roused to investigate this nighttime procession excitedly awakened others.

“She has been here only five days,” Auriane heard one exclaim in furtive whispers. But what intrigued them more was that she was brought to the island by night.
Apparently this had not happened in anyone’s memory. Who was
this war-loving daughter of a distant chief who was garbed in the holiest of garments, and allowed to see the great Holy One after a wait of but five days?

Nearly the whole population was awake; they pressed close, watching with great curiosity. Several came forward, shouting or stammering their cases to Auriane in tongues she half understood, thinking she could intercede so they would be heard more quickly. Helgrune drove them off.

The coracle’s prow was carved into the shape of a dragon’s head; a lamp was concealed in the hollow head so that its eyes glowed and smoked, and an ancient consciousness, terrifying but benign, seemed to dwell there. As Auriane stepped unsteadily into the small craft, the smoking head dipped and rose with her weight. She was followed by the two torch-bearers who took their places at bow and stern. A single oarsman bore them off with sweeping strokes. The twin fires of the torches were reflected on the perfectly still waters as if in a mirror of moonstone. Rising like vapor from the dark island came the sound of birdbone flutes playing for a dance of ghosts. The sound of the gentle dipping of oars into water added a slightly askew percussion accompaniment to the wild, roaming plaint of the flutes. Auriane was in one moment faint at the strangeness of it all and in the next roused to sharp attention, in spite of the fact that they appeared to honor her. Who truly knew Ramis’ mind?

She is dark and unpredictable, and she knows I despise her.

The coracle bumped softly against the bank of the island. Helgrune and the two torchbearers led her up a flight of stone steps. Many tame serpents lived here with Ramis; their patterned backs caught Auriane’s eye as they rippled like running water just beyond the circle of torchlight.