Legacy: Arthurian Saga (24 page)

In the middle of the bay, so centered
that at first I thought it must be man-made, was an island -- what
must, rather, be an island at high tide, but was now a peninsula,
an oval of land joined to the shore by a rough causeway of stones,
certainly man-made, which ran out like a navel cord to join it to
the shingle. In the nearer of the shallow harbors made by the
causeway and the shore a few small boats -- coracles, I thought --
lay beached like seals.

Here, low beside the bay, there was
mist again, hanging here and there among the boughs like fishing
nets hung out to dry. On the water's surface it floated in patches,
spreading slowly till it curdled and thinned and then wisped away
to nothing, only to thicken again elsewhere, and smoke slowly
across the water. It lay round the base of the island so densely
that this seemed to float on cloud, and the stars that hung above
reflected a grey light from the mist that showed me the island
clearly.

This was egg-shaped rather than oval,
narrow at the causeway end, and widening towards the far end where
a small hill, as regular in shape as a beehive, stood up out of the
flat ground. Round the base of this hillock stood a circle of the
standing stones, a circle broken only at the point facing me, where
a wide gap made a gateway from which an avenue of the stones
marched double, like a colonnade, straight down to the
causeway.

There was neither sound nor movement.
If it had not been for the dim shapes of the beached boats I would
have thought that the shriek, the chanting, were figments of a
dream. I stood just inside the edge of the forest, with my left arm
round a young ash tree and the weight on my right foot, watching
with eyes so completely adjusted to the dark of the forest that the
mist-illumined island seemed as light as day.

At the foot of the hill, directly at
the end of the central avenue, a torch flared suddenly. It lit,
momentarily, an opening low in the face of the hill, and clearly in
front of this the torch-bearer, a figure in a white robe. I saw,
then, that what I had taken to be banks of mist in the shadow of
the cromlechs were groups of motionless figures also robed in
white. As the torch lifted I heard the chanting begin again, very
softly, and with a loose and wandering rhythm that was strange to
me. Then the torch and its bearer slowly sank earthwards, and I
realized that the doorway was a sunken one, and he was descending a
flight of steps into the heart of the hill. The others crowded
after him, groups clotting, coalescing round the doorway, then
vanishing like smoke being sucked into an oven door.

The chanting still went on, but so
faint and muffled that it sounded no more than the humming of bees
in a winter hive. No tune came through, only the rhythm which sank
to a mere throb in the air, a pulse of sound felt rather than
heard, which little by little tightened and quickened till it beat
fast and hard, and my blood with it.

Suddenly, it stopped. There was a
pause of dead stillness, but a stillness so charged that I felt my
throat knot and swell with tension. I found I had left the trees
and stood clear on the turf above the bank, my injury forgotten, my
feet planted apart, flat and squarely on the ground, as if my body
were rooted through them and straining to pull life from the earth
as a tree pulls sap. And like the shoot of a tree growing and
thrusting, the excitement in me grew and swelled, beating through
somehow from the depths of the island and along the navel cord of
the causeway, bursting up through flesh and spirit so that when the
cry came at length it was as if it had burst from my own
body.

A different cry this time, thin and
edged, which might have meant anything, triumph or surrender or
pain. A death cry, this time not from the victim, but from the
killer.

And after it, silence. The night was
fixed and still. The island was a closed hive sealed over whatever
crawled and hummed within.

Then the leader -- I assumed it was
he, though this time the torch was out -- appeared suddenly like a
ghost in the doorway and mounted the steps. The rest came behind,
moving not as people move in a procession, but slowly and smoothly,
in groups breaking and forming, contained in pattern like a dance,
till once more they stood parted into two ranks beside the
cromlechs.

Again complete stillness. Then the
leader raised his arms. As if at a signal, white and shining like a
knife-blade, the edge of the moon showed over the hill.

The leader cried out, and this, the
third cry, was unmistakably a call of triumphant greeting, and he
stretched his arms high above his head as if offering up what he
held between his hands.

The crowd answered him, chant and
counterchant. Then as the moon lifted clear of the hill, the priest
lowered his arms and turned. What he had offered to the goddess, he
now offered to the worshippers. The crowd closed in.

I had been so intent on the ceremony
at the center of the island that I had not watched the shore, or
realized that the mist, creeping higher, was now blurring the
avenue itself. My eyes, straining through the dark, saw the white
shapes of the people as part of the mist that clotted, strayed, and
eddied here and there in knots of white.

Presently I became aware that this, in
fact, was what was happening. The crowd was breaking apart, and the
people, in twos and threes, were passing silently down the avenue,
in and out of the barred shadows which the rising moon painted
between the stones. They were making for the boats.

I have no idea how long it had all
taken, but as I came to myself I found that I was stiff, and where
I had allowed my cloak to fall away I was soaked with the mist. I
shook myself like a dog, backing again into the shelter of the
trees. Excitement had spilled out of me, spirit as well as body, in
a warm gush down my thighs, and I felt empty and ashamed. Dimly I
knew that this was something different; this had not been the force
I had learned to receive and foster, nor was this spilled-out
sensation the aftermath of power. That had left me light and free
and keen as a cutting blade; now I felt empty as a licked pot still
sticky and smelling with what it had held.

I bent, stiff-sinewed, to pull a
swatch of wet and pallid grass, and cleaned myself, scrubbing my
hands, and scooping mist drops off the turf to wash my face. The
water smelled of leaves, and of the wet air itself, and made me
think of Galapas and the holy well and the long cup of horn. I
dried my hands on the inside of my cloak, drew it about me, and
went back to my station by the ash tree.

The bay was dotted with the retreating
coracles. The island had emptied, all but one tall white figure who
came, now, straight down the center of the avenue. The mist
cloaked, revealed, and cloaked him again. He was not making for a
boat; he seemed to be heading straight for the causeway, but as he
reached the end of the avenue he paused in the shadow of the final
stone, and vanished.

I waited, feeling little except
weariness and a longing for a drink of clear water and the
familiarity of my warm and quiet room. There was no magic in the
air; the night was as flat as old sour wine. In a moment, sure
enough, I saw him emerge into the moonlight of the causeway. He was
clad now in a dark robe. All he had done was drop his white robe
off. He carried it over his arm.

The last of the boats was a speck
dwindling in the darkness. The solitary man came quickly across the
causeway. I stepped out from under the trees and down on to the
shingle to meet him.

10

Belasius saw me even before I was
clear of the trees' shadow. He made no sign except to turn aside as
he stepped off the causeway. He came up, unhurried, and stood over
me, looking down.

"Ah." It was the only greeting, said
without surprise. "I might have known. How long have you been
here?"

"I hardly know. Time passed so
quickly. I was interested." He was silent. The moonlight, bright
now, fell slanting on his right cheek. I could not see the eyes
veiled under the long dark lids, but there was something quiet,
almost sleepy about his voice and bearing. I had felt the same
after that releasing cry, there in the forest. The bolt had struck,
and now the bow was unstrung. He took no notice of my provocation,
asking merely: "What brought you here?"

"I rode down when I heard the
scream."

"Ah," he said again, then: "Down from
where?"

"From the pine grove where you left
your horse."

"Why did you come this way? I told you
to keep to the road."

"I know, but I wanted a gallop, so we
turned off into the main logging track, and I had an accident with
Aster; he's wrenched a foreleg, so we had to lead him back. It was
slow, and we were late, so we took a short cut."

"I see. And where is
Cadal?"

"I think he thought I'd run for home,
and he must have gone after me. At any rate he didn't follow me
down here."

"That was sensible of him," said
Belasius. His voice was still quiet, sleepy almost, but cat-sleepy,
velvet sheathing a bright dagger-point. "But in spite of -- what
you heard -- it did not in fact occur to you to run for
home?"

"Of course not." I saw his eyes glint
for a moment under the long lids. " 'Of course not'?"

"I had to know what was going
on."

"Ah. Did you know I would be
here?"

"Not before I saw Ulfin and the
horses, no. And not because you told me to keep to the road,
either. But I -- shall we say I knew something was abroad in the
forest tonight, and that I had to find it?" He regarded me for a
moment longer. I had been right in thinking he would not look
surprised. Then he jerked his head. "Come, it's cold, and I want my
cloak." As I followed him up the grating shingle he added, over his
shoulder: "I take it that Ulfin is still there?"

"I should think so. You have him
pretty efficiently frightened."

"He has no need to be afraid, as long
as he keeps away and sees nothing."

"Then it's true he doesn't
know?"

"Whatever he knows or doesn't know,"
he said indifferently, "he has the sense to keep silent. I have
promised him that if he obeys me in these things without question,
then I shall free him in time to escape."

"Escape? From what?"

"Death when I die. It is normal to
send the priests' servants with them." We were walking side by side
up the path. I glanced at him. He was wearing a dark robe, more
elegant than anything I had seen at home, even the clothes Camlach
wore; his belt was of beautifully worked leather, probably Italian,
and there was a big round brooch at his shoulder where the
moonlight caught a design of circles and knotted snakes in gold. He
looked -- even under the film which tonight's proceedings had drawn
over him -- Romanized, urbane, intelligent. I said: "Forgive me,
Belasius, but didn't that kind of thing go out with the Egyptians?
Even in Wales we would think it old-fashioned."

"Perhaps. But then you might say the
Goddess herself is old-fashioned, and likes to be worshipped in the
ways she knows. And our way is almost as old as she is, older than
men can remember, even in songs or stones. Long before the bulls
were killed inPersia, long before they came to Crete, long before
even the sky-gods came out of Africa and these stones were raised
to them, the Goddess was here in the sacred grove. Now the forest
is closed to us, and we worship where we can, but wherever the
Goddess is, be it stone or tree or cave, there is the grove called
Nemet, and there we make the offering. -- I see you understand
me."

"Very well. I was taught these things
in Wales. But it's a few hundred years since they made the kind of
offering you made tonight."

His voice was smooth as oil. "He was
killed for sacrilege. Did they not teach you?" He stopped dead, and
his hand dropped to his hip. His tone changed. "That's Cadal's
horse." His head went round like a hunting dog's.

"I brought it," I said. "I told you my
pony went lame. Cadal will have gone home. I suppose he took one of
yours."

I unhitched the mare and brought her
out into the moonlight of the open path. He was settling the dagger
back in its sheath. We walked on, the mare following, her nose at
my shoulder. My foot had almost ceased to hurt.

I said: "So, death for Cadal, too?
This isn't just a question of sacrilege, then? Your ceremonies are
so very secret? Is this a matter of a mystery, Belasius, or is what
you do illegal?"

"It is both secret and illegal. We
meet where we can. Tonight we had to use the island; it's safe
enough -- normally there's not a soul would come near it on the
night of the equinox. But if word came to Budec there would be
trouble. The man we killed tonight was a King's man; he's been held
here for eight days now, and Budec's scouts have been searching for
him. But he had to die."

"Will they find him now?"

"Oh, yes, a long way from here, in the
forest. They will think a wild boar ripped him." Again that
slanting glance. "You could say he died easily, in the end. In the
old days he would have had his navel cut out, and would have been
whipped round and round the sacred tree until his guts were wrapped
round it like wool on a spindle."