Darkspell (6 page)

With a wrench of will she calmed herself. Giving in to mad fury would do her no good.

“You’ve got to think,” she told herself. “And pray to the Goddess. She’s the only hope you’ve got.”

“The main body’s pulled out,” Dagwyn said. “But they left four men behind.”

“Bastards!” Ricyn snarled. “Treating our lady like she was a prize horse or suchlike, there for the stealing!”

Camlwn nodded grimly. The three of them were the last men left alive from the Wolf’s warband, and for days they’d been camping in the wooded hills behind the Temple of the Moon, where they could watch over the woman that they considered their sworn lord. All three of them had served the Wolf clan from boyhood, and they were prepared to go on serving it now.

“How good a watch are they standing?” Ricyn said. “Armed and ready for a scrap?”

“Not on your life.” Dagwyn paused for a grim smile. “When I sneaked up on them, I saw them sitting around in
the grass, as happy as you please, and dicing with their shirtsleeves rolled up.”

“Oh, were they, now? Then let’s hope that the gods make their game a nice long one.”

The free men who worked the temple’s lands were extremely loyal to the high priestess, partly because she took far less of their crops in taxes than a noble lord would have, but mostly because they considered it an honor for them and their families to serve the Goddess. Ardda was sure, or so she told Gweniver, that one of the men would make the long trip to Dun Deverry for her with a message.

“This has got to stop! I can’t order those men off land that doesn’t belong to me, but I’m not going to let them sit there all summer, either. You’re not a criminal come here for sanctuary, and so they’ve got no right to keep you in. And besides, we all know they’d murder you if they could. We’ll see if the king Burcan serves can make him call his men off.”

“Do you think the king will listen to your petition?” Gweniver said. “I’ll wager he wants our lands in the hands of one of his vassals.”

“He’d best listen! I’m asking the high priestess in the Dun Deverry temple to intercede personally.”

Gweniver held the bridle of Ardda’s palfrey as she mounted, adjusting her long dresses over the sidesaddle, then walked beside her horse as she rode down to the gates. Since the four Boarsmen had shown no inclination to try entering the temple, the gates were standing open. Gweniver and Lypilla, the gatekeeper for the day, stood together and watched as Ardda rode out, sitting straight and defiantly in the saddle. As she reached the road, the Boarsmen scrambled to their feet and made her deep, respectful bows.

“Bastards,” Gweniver muttered. “They’re keeping to every letter of the law while tearing out its heart.”

“Just that. I wonder if they’d even murder you.”

“Take me to Burcan for a forced marriage, more like. I’d die first!”

They shared a troubled glance. Gweniver had known Lypilla all her life, just as she’d always known Ardda. They were as close to her as aunts or elder sisters, yet she doubted deep in her heart if she could bear to share their life. Out on the road Ardda turned round the curve of the hill, riding north, and disappeared. The Boarsmen sat down and returned to their dice game. Gweniver found herself remembering the man she’d killed on the road and wishing that she could deal those four the same Wyrd.

Although she could have gone back and made herself useful in the kitchen, Gweniver lingered at the gates for a while, idly talking with Lypilla and staring out at the freedom of hill and meadow denied her. All at once they heard distant hoofbeats, riding fast from the south.

“I suppose Burcan’s sending messengers or suchlike to his men,” Lypilla remarked.

The Boarsmen in the meadow seemed to agree, because they rose, idly stretching, and turned toward the sound. Suddenly, out of a stand of trees, burst three riders in full mail and with swords at the ready. The Boarsmen stood frozen for a moment, then yelled and cursed as they drew swords: the riders were charging straight into them. Gweniver heard Lypilla scream as a Boarsman went down with his head cut half off his shoulders. A horse reared and staggered, and Gweniver saw the rider’s shield full on.

“Wolves!”

Without thinking she was running, sword in hand, down the hill while Lypilla screamed and begged her to come back. The second Boarsman fell as she ran; the third was being mobbed by two riders; the fourth broke and ran straight up the hill, as if in his panic he was trying to reach the sanctuary of the temple that his very presence was desecrating. When he saw Gweniver racing straight for him, he hesitated, then dodged to one side as if to go around her. With a howl of unearthly laughter that sprang out of her mouth of its own will, she charged and swung, catching him across the right shoulder before he could parry. When the sword slipped from his useless fingers, she laughed
again and stabbed him in the throat. Her laughter rose to a banshee’s shriek as the bright blood ran, and he fell.

“My lady!” It was Ricyn’s voice, cutting through her laugh. “Oh, by the Lord of Hell!”

The laughter vanished, leaving her sick and cold, staring at the corpse at her feet. Dimly she was aware of Ricyn dismounting and jogging toward her.

“My lady! My lady Gweniver! Do you recognize me?”

“What?” She looked up, puzzled. “Of course I do, Ricco. Haven’t I known you half my life?”

“Well, my lady, that’s not worth a pig’s fart when a man goes beserk like you just did.”

She felt as if he’d thrown icy water into her face. For a moment she stared half-witted at him while he looked her over in bemused concern. Just nineteen, her own age, Ricyn was a broad-faced, sunny-looking blond who was, according to her brothers, one of the most reliable men in the warband, if not the kingdom. It was odd to have him watching her as if she were dangerous.

“Well, that’s what it was, my lady. Ye gods, it made my blood run cold, hearing you laugh.”

“Not half as cold as it made mine. Berserk. By the Goddess Herself, that’s what I was.”

Dark-haired, slender, and perpetually grinning, Dagwyn led his horse up and made her a bow.

“Too bad they left four men behind, my lady. You could have handled two all by yourself.”

“Maybe even three,” Ricyn said. “Where’s Cam?”

“Putting his horse out of its misery. One of those scum could actually swing a sword in the right direction.”

“Well, we’ve got their horses now, and all their provisions, too.” Ricyn glanced at Gweniver. “We’ve been up in the woods, my lady, waiting to make our strike. We figured that the Boar couldn’t sit here all blasted summer. The dun’s razed, by the by. We rode back and found it.”

“I figured it would be. What of Blaeddbyr?”

“It still stands. The folk there gave us food.” Ricyn looked away, his mouth slack. “The Boar caught the warband on the road, you see. It was just dawn, and we were
only half-dressed when the bastards came over the hill without so much as a challenge or the sound of a horn. They had twice as many men as we did, so Lord Avoic yells that we’re to run for our lives, but we couldn’t do it fast enough. Forgive me, my lady. I should have died there with him, but then I thought about you—well, you and all the womenfolk, I mean—so I thought it’d be better to die in the ward defending you.”

“So did we,” Dagwyn chimed in. “But we were too late. We had to be cursed careful with Boars all over the roads, and by the time we reached the dun, it was burning. And we were all half-mad, thinking you slain, but Ricco here says you could have gotten to the temple.”

“So we headed here,” Ricyn picked up. “And when we found the stinking Boar camped at the gates, we knew you had to be inside.”

“And so we were,” Gweniver said. “Well and good, then. You lads get those horses and that cart of supplies up here. There’re some huts round back for the husbands of women who come just for a day or two. You can stay there while I decide what we’ll do next.”

Although Dagwyn hurried off to follow orders, Ricyn lingered, rubbing his dirty face with the back of a dirtier hand.

“We’d better bury those Boars, my lady. We can’t leave that for the holy ladies.”

“True enough. Huh. I wonder what the high priestess is going to say about this. Well, that’s for me to worry about, not you. My thanks for rescuing me.”

At that he smiled, just a little twist of his mouth, then hurried off after the others.

Although Ardda was not pleased to have four men slain at her gates, she was resigned, even remarking that perhaps the Goddess was punishing the Boars’ impiety in the matter.

“No doubt,” Gweniver said. “Because it was She who killed that one lad. I was naught but a sword in Her hands.”

Ardda looked at her sharply. They were sitting in her study, a spare stone room with a shelf of six holy books on one wall and a table littered with temple accounts on the other. Even now, with her decision coming clear in her mind, Gweniver debated. Once her highest ambition had been to be high priestess here herself and to have this study for her own.

“All afternoon I’ve been praying to Her,” Gweniver went on. “I’m going to leave you, my lady. I’m going to swear to the Moon and turn the clan over to Macla. Then I’m going to take my men and go to Cerrmor and lay the Wolf’s petition before the king. Once I have the tattoo, the Boar will have no reason to harm me.”

“Just so, but it’s still dangerous. I hate to think of you out on the roads these days with just three riders for an escort. Who knows what men will do these days, even to a priestess?”

“Not just three, my lady. I’m the fourth.”

Ardda went still, crouched in her chair as she began to pick up Gweniver’s meaning.

“Don’t you remember telling me about the fourth face of the Goddess?” Gweniver went on. “Her dark side, when the moon turns bloody and black, the mother who eats her own children.”

“Gwen. Not that.”

“That.” With a toss of her head, she rose to pace about the chamber. “I’m going to take my men and join the war. It’s been too long since a Moon-sworn warrior fought in Deverry.”

“You’ll be killed.” Ardda got to her feet. “I shan’t allow it.”

“Is it for either of us to allow or disallow if the Goddess calls me? I felt Her hands on me today.”

Their eyes met, they locked stares in a battle of will. When Ardda looked away first, Gweniver realized that she was no longer a child, but a woman.

“There are ways to test such inspirations,” Ardda said at last. “Come into the temple tonight. If the Goddess
grants you a vision, it’s not for me to say you nay. But if She doesn’t—”

“I’ll be guided by your wisdom in the matter.”

“Very well, then. And what if She grants you a vision, but not the one you think you want?”

“Then I’ll swear to Her anyway. The time has come, my lady. I want to hear the secret name of the Goddess and make my vow.”

In preparation for the ceremony, Gweniver fasted that evening. While the temple was at its dinner, she fetched water from the well and heated herself a bath by the kitchen hearth. As she was dressing afterward, she paused to look at her brother’s shirt, which she’d embroidered for him the year before. On each yoke, worked in red, was the striding wolf of the clan, surrounded by a band of interlacement. The pattern twined so cleverly around itself that it looked like a chain of knots made up of many strands, but in fact there was only one line to it, and each knot flowed inevitably into the next. My Wyrd’s just such a tangle, she told herself, all chained round.

And with the thought came a cold feeling, as if she had spoken better than she could know. As she finished dressing, she was frightened. It was not that perhaps she might die in battle; she knew that she would be slain, maybe soon, maybe many years hence. It was the way of the Dark Goddess, to call upon her priestesses to make the last sacrifice when She decided the time had come. When Gweniver picked up the sword belt, she hesitated, half tempted to throw it to the floor; then she buckled it on and strode out of the room.

The round wooden temple stood in the center of the compound. At either side of the door grew twisted, flamelike cypress trees, brought all the way from Bardek and nursed through many a cold winter. When Gweniver walked between them, she felt a surge of power as if she passed through a gate into another world. She knocked nine times on the oak door and waited until nine muffled knocks answered from inside. Then she opened it and went
into the antechamber, dimly lit by a single candle. A priestess robed in black waited for her.

“Wear those clothes in the temple. Take in your sword as well. The high priestess has so commanded.”

In the inner shrine the polished wood walls gleamed in the light of nine oil lamps, and the floor lay spread with fresh rushes. By the far wall stood the altar, a boulder left rough except for the top, which had been smoothed into a table. Behind it hung a huge circular mirror, the only image of Her that the Goddess will have in Her temples. Dressed in black, Ardda stood to the left.

“Unsheathe the sword and lay it on the altar.”

Gweniver curtsied to the mirror, then did as the high priestess ordered. Through a side door three senior priestesses entered without a word and stood at the right, waiting to witness her vow.

“We are assembled to instruct and receive one who would serve the Goddess of the Moon,” Ardda said. “Gweniver of the Wolf is known to us all. Are there any objections to her candidacy?”

“None,” the three said in unison. “She is known to us as one blessed by Our Lady.”

“Well and good, then.” The high priestess turned to Gweniver. “Will you swear to serve the Goddess all your days and nights?”

“I will, my lady.”

“Will you swear never to know a man?”

“I will, my lady.”

“Will you swear never to betray the secret of the holy name?”

“I will, my lady.”

Ardda raised her hands and clapped them together three times, then three more, and finally a third three, measuring out the holy number in its just proportion. Gweniver felt a solemn yet blissful peace, a sweetness like mead flowing through her body. At last the decision was made, and her vow given over.

“Of all the goddesses,” Ardda went on, “only Our Lady has no name known to the common folk. We hear of
Epona, we hear of Sirona, we hear of Aranrhodda, but always Our Lady is simply the Goddess of the Moon.” She turned to the three witnesses. “And why should such a thing be?”