The Hallowed Isle Book Three (24 page)

Here, where the outflow of the river met the tide, the water was both sweet and salt.
It is all the waters of the world
, thought Morgause, bearing the Cauldron back to the shore.

She set it down at the water's edge and knelt behind it. A last wave ran up the sand and splashed her, and then the tide began to turn, but the moonpath continued to lengthen, glistening on the wet sand, until the light struck first the rim of the Cauldron and then the water within, and began to glow.

It was the power she had glimpsed in her mother's ritual, increased a thousandfold. It was all she had ever hoped for, or desired. Heart pounding, Morgause gripped the rim of the Cauldron and looked in.

In the first moment, she saw only the moon reflected in the surface of the water. In the next, light flared around her. She did not know if the water had fountained or she were falling in. Glowing shapes moved around her; she blinked, and recognized the goddesses whose outer images had been embossed upon the Cauldron's skin. The Lady of the Silver Wheel and the Lady of Ravens, the Flower Bride and the Great Mother, the Lady of Healing and the Death Crone, all of them passed before her—but now she perceived them without the veils of form that human minds had imposed to shield eyes unready to gaze on glory.

Morgause floated in the center of their circle, trembling as one by one they turned to look at her. She tried to hide her face, but she had no hands, and no feet with which to run even if there had been anywhere to go. A naked soul, she cowered beneath that pitiless contemplation that beheld and judged every angry thought and selfish deed and bitter word. In that brilliance all her justifications and excuses dissolved and disappeared.

And with them, the separate images dislimned and flowed together until there was only one Goddess, who wore her mother's face, and gazed at her with all the love that Morgause had ever longed for in Her eyes, and then that image also gave way to a radiance beyond all forms and gender, and she knew no more.

Half a hundred of Artor's Companions had ridden out to search for the Cauldron. As the infant moon grew to maturity and then began to dwindle, more and more of them returned. Some, like Aggarban, came back wounded. Sullen and taciturn once his fever left him, Aggarban was recovering well, but there were others who reached Camalot only to die, or who never returned at all, and Guendivar could not help but wonder whether Morgause had managed to curse the Cauldron.

And yet there were others who came back with a new light in their eyes, having found, if not the Cauldron, the thing that gave it meaning. It had taken her some days to realize that Manus, who had accompanied Igierne back down from the north, had gone out to search with the other men. He had not returned either, but she could not explain why she was worried about a kitchen lad.

The days passed, and Cai came in. He seemed more peaceful than he had been, though he refused to say much of his journey.

“I never even found a trace of the theives,” he told them. “But I do feel better—perhaps I just needed to get away.. . .”

Peretur had a strange tale of a girl he met by a sacred spring that made Guendivar wonder if he too had encountered the folk of faerie. Gwyhir returned triumphant, having surpassed Vortipor's tally of slain outlaws. Young Amminius did not come back, but sent word that he was leaving the world to join a hermit he had found in the forest.

By the dark of the moon, of the most notable warriors all had been accounted for save Gualchmai. At first, Artor refused to worry. His nephew was widely recognized as the best fighter in an army that was the best in Britannia. Surely he could deal with any foe who might challenge him. But as time went on with no word, men began to remember that even the greatest fighter could be taken down from ambush or overwhelmed by numbers. And yet, even outnumbered, Gualchmai must have given an account of himself that would make the heavens ring.

And then, as the first sliver of new moon glimmered in the afternoon sky, the gate guard sent word that a single rider was coming up the road, a big man with a shock of wheat-colored hair. That hair, and the red-and-white shield, were famous all over Britannia. By the time Gualchmai rode through the gate, the entire population of Camalot was turned out to meet him.

“What is it?” he asked, looking around him. “Is there a festival?”

Whatever he had been doing, it was not fighting, for there was not a mark upon him. In fact he looked younger. The tunic he was wearing was new, made from green linen with embroidery around the neck and hems.

“To look at you, there must be!” exclaimed Gwyhir. “Where have you been, man? We've been worried about you!”

“Oh . . .” A becoming flush reddened Gualchmai's skin. “I didn't realize.” There was another pause. “I got married . . .” he said then.

He could hardly have caused a greater uproar, thought Guendivar, if he had announced a new invasion of Saxons. In time of war, Gualchmai was a great fighter. In peace he had gained an equal reputation as a lover of women. One could believe almost any feat in the bedchamber or the battlefield. But not marriage.

He told them about it later, when they were all gathered in the hall. He had taken the northern road, and after a day found the tracks of a large party of men. Gualchmai followed them onto a path that led through a patch of woodland, catching up just in time to break up an attack on an ancient Roman two-wheeled carriage with two women and an old man inside.

“Her name is Gracilia, and she was a widow, living in an old villa and struggling to keep the farm going with three slaves.”

“She must be very beautiful . . .” said Vortipor, but Guendivar wondered. It had always seemed to her that Gualchmai was so successful with women just because he found
all
of them beautiful.

“She . . .” Gualchmai gestured helplessly, seeking for words. “She is what I need.”

She is his Vessel of Light
—thought Guendivar as the conversation continued.

“I thought I had made Britannia safe because there were no more enemies attacking from outside her borders,” said Artor at last, “but you are not the only one to have encountered worse evil within. My own injuries kept me confined to Camalot for too long. In the future it will be different, I swear.”

For three days, after the full of the moon, Morgause lay half conscious and drained of energy. When Doli, concerned because she had not called him in the morning, had gone to her, he had found the Cauldron back in its chest and his mistress lying unconscious beside it. Morgause had no memory of having put it there, but for some time, her memories of the entire night remained fragmented, like something remembered from a dream.

But certain facts remained with her, and as the days passed, they became clearer.

The Cauldron's power was far greater than she had imagined, and far less amenable to human control, and the Isle of Maidens was the only place where it might be safely kept in this world.

The Goddess for whom it was the physical gateway was also greater than Morgause had allowed herself to believe, and the aspects that she had for the past ten years worshipped were no more adequate to represent the whole than the pallid version she had scorned the priestesses of the Isle of Maidens for honoring.

Her mother loved her, and the hostility between them was as much her own fault as it was Igierne's.

When a week had passed and Morgause could stand up without her legs turning to water, she ordered her men to break camp and took the road north towards Luguvalium. They traveled slowly while her strength was returning, and so the moon had grown dark and was beginning to wax once more when they came to the fortress of Voreda.

That night they sheltered in the barracks, abandoned for nearly a century. In the morning, Morgause led the way to the track that wound westward through the hills.

Once, she had known this way well. Now, she took in the prospect revealed by each turn of the road with new eyes. Never before had she been so conscious that this was a place outside ordinary reality, a realm of mountains sculptured by giants, rising like guardians behind the familiar hills. They hid a secret country that she, always so preoccupied by her own concerns, had never really known.

In body Morgause grew steadily stronger. Her past was forgotten, the future unknown. She greeted each dawn with increasing eagerness, wondering what the new day would bring, until they crested the last rise and saw through the black fringe of pine trees a glint of blue.

Where the trail curved round towards the trees stood an ancient boulder. When she had lived here as a child, the maidens used to call it the throne.

Someone was sitting there.

Even before Morgause could see the figure clearly, she sensed who it must be.
Just as my mother knew that I would be coming
, she thought then.
I always believed that we fought because we were too different, but perhaps it was because we are too much the same.. . 
.

With a few words she halted Uinuist and Doli. She dismounted, then and took the rein of the pony to whose back the chest had been bound, and started towards the stone.

As she drew closer, Morgause realized that she was not the only one who had changed. She had never believed that her mother could look so fragile. The sunlight that dappled the ground beneath the pine needles seemed to shine through her.

There was another thing. Igierne was a trained priestess, and Morgause had seen her often in the willed and disciplined stillness of ritual. But there had always been a tension, a sense of leashed power in reserve, like a warhorse on a tight rein. Now, her mother simply sat still.

“I have brought the gift of the Goddess back to its place . . .” said Morgause, letting the lead rope fall.

“You do not say that you have brought it back to
me,”
observed Igierne.

“It is not yours,” said Morgause. “Nor is it mine . . . that is what I have learned.”

“If you know that, you have learned a great deal.”

“I have indeed . . .” Morgause gave a rather shaky sigh and dropped down to sit cross-legged in the dust at her mother's feet. Through the trees she could see sunlight dancing on the blue water, and knew the Lake for another vessel of power.

Manus was nearly the last of the seekers to come back to Camalot, and when he returned, he rode clad as a warrior, escorting a young priestess who had been sent by Igierne.

“I am glad to see you!” said Guendivar when the babble of welcome had died down. “But what is all this?” she indicated his armor. “You have changed!”

He blushed as everyone turned to look at him once more, but all could see that he wore the gear as one accustomed, not like a kitchen boy who had stripped some armor from a body he found by the road.

“Why did the Lady send
you
to guard her messenger?” wondered someone.

Aggarban pointed the stick upon which he had been leaning at the kitchen boy.

“And why are ye wearing a Votadini plaid?”

“Because it is mine!” snapped Manus, reddening once more. “And you are a blind oaf, brother, that never stooped to
look
at the folk who serve ye, or ye would have recognized me before!”

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Gualchmai guffawed with laughter. “Oh indeed, he has ye there, Aggarban. And in truth he does have the look of Goriat, does he not, Gwyhir?”

“Oh, he does, he does—” agreed the second brother, his gaze travelling upward, “but much, much larger.. . .” And then everyone, even Artor, who had finished his conversation with the priestess, began to laugh.

“And he has outdone you all,” said the king, “for Goriat has found the Cauldron, or at least brought word of it. That is the message my mother has sent to me. The sacred vessel is safe in its shrine, and the Lady of the Votadini is there as well.”

“
Mother?”
exclaimed the three older brothers, amazement stamping their faces with a momentary identity.

“Was it Morgause who stole it, then?” exclaimed Cai amidst a rising babble of speculation.

“The message does not say, and whatever lies between my sister and my mother is their own affair,” Artor said repressively.

“If the Cauldron has been found, then all our wandering warriors can come home,” Guendivar said then.

“It will not matter,” observed Betiver. “Pagan though it was, I think the Cauldron was what the priests mean by a sacrament—an earthly symbol that points the way to something beyond. That was what we saw that night, and that is what they are looking for.”

“Perhaps we have been too successful,” Cai said ruefully. “When we were constantly in danger from the Saxons or the Irish, men had no time to worry about much beyond their own skins.”

“And now they worry about their sins.. . .” Artor sighed.

“Take comfort, my lord. So long as human beings must live in the world, they will need good government, and heaven does not hold the only beauty of which men dream.”

For a moment, Betiver's glance touched Guendivar. Then he looked away. But others had followed the motion, and now she stood at the center of all men's gaze. She heard their thought clearly, though it was not with her physical ears.

“
For some, the Vessel of Light is here
. . .”

Igierne made her way along the edge of the Lake. Beyond the farther shore, the humped shapes of the mountains rose up against the luminous blue of the night sky like a black wall, shutting out the world. Beyond the lapping of the water and the crunch of her footsteps on stone and gravel, the night was still. The surface was uneven and she moved carefully, using her staff for support, for her stiff joints would not be able to save her if she should fall. It was one of the disadvantages of growing older, and at this moment, she felt both old and tired.

But for the first time in many moons, she was at peace. Her daughter had come home as Igierne's own mother had foretold. Morgause had much to unlearn as well as to learn before the rage and hatred in which she had lived for so many years were entirely replaced by wisdom and love. Igierne did not suppose that their relationship would always be peaceful, but at least they now
had
one, instead of a state of war. And the Lady of the Lake had no desire to break her daughter's will—to rule the Isle of Maidens, Morgause would need to be strong, as she had been strong. But Igierne could foresee, now, a time when she herself would be able to let go.