The Priest of Blood (37 page)

“I fear for his soul,” Alienora whispered, drawing her hand back from the nun’s. “Shadows whisper to me of demons. Since I came, I have heard them. They tell me that his soul is hostage to deviltry.”

“Dreams may bring prophecy,” the Sister said. “But we may pray together here. Pray for all the souls lost to the Devil.”

“He has been at war now for four months,” Alienora said. Her complexion turned ashen, and she clutched the small cross around her neck, then kissed it. “The shadows show me things.”

“Do you see?” Merod said within me. “The shadows know her. They taunt her. They sniff at her to find you.”

The liquid air swirled, then settled. The Glass became clear again. Alienora knelt before a great dark statue at the very back of the Magdalen cave. It was of Mary Magdalen, I suppose, but her face did not seem blessed. Instead, the statue, which was black stone, was of a Dark Madonna. I had heard of this heresy, although it was not thought ill by many. Yet it was not what Alienora’s Church would smile upon—the veneration not of Mary, Mother of God, but of her mirror twin. The image could not precisely be called Mary Magdalen, for the woman who had posed for the statue looked as if she were a queen of some country, and not of the humble sinner, the female apostle of Christ. Yet Alienora whispered the Ave Maria to this statue, and kissed her feet. Then I heard her prayer. She whispered in my mind, “Dear Lady, our Mother in the Dark and of the Deepest Places, let me understand the dream you sent to me. Let me understand what it meant. You know how I have sinned against the Almighty and the angels, and how I blasphemed the chapel of Our Lady in my father’s house. You, Lady, know of darkness and of despair. You have knowledge of my sins. You understand the visions of angels and devils. Please guide me now. And bless Aleric. Bless the father of my child,” she said, touching her stomach.

3

I gasped as I heard her words and held my breath for a few moments.

A child.

I wanted to look at her, to see her belly, to see how she had grown with child, but my vision followed Alienora’s sight as she prayed upward to the black Madonna. Her face was imperious, and in her hands was a small, dark chest made of wood. In it, as Alienora’s small white hands opened it, a dried human heart. The relic of the Magdalen.

Alienora leaned over, kissing the dried heart. “Hear my prayer. Save my beloved. Save his soul. Bring him to me. Cleanse me of my sins.”

Another vision came up: Alienora, daily and nightly, at the foot of the Dark Madonna, praying for both her child and my soul. “I will do anything to protect him,” she said. “Anything. Please bless him. Please protect him from the forces of Hell. Please bring him home to see his child.” Her belly grew, and her weeping increased.

Then I saw the night of the birth.

Beyond the Magdalen’s home, an enormous storm raged upon the marshes. Lightning flashed among the trees, and a great fire grew from among the oaks that stood sentry beyond the grotto.

Within the cave, at its mouth, I saw the flickering of candles and the shadowy figures of the Sisters as they tended my beloved’s night of pain and birth. I felt my heart beating hard in my chest, and my mouth went dry as I watched the silhouette of my child’s birth.

Just as Alienora screamed, nuns cried out with delight when they saw the baby’s head.

The lightning flashed and, for a moment, I saw them all—several nuns gathered around as Alienora clutched at them, screeching at the pain. I saw a bloodied newborn in the arms of one of the Sisters. One of the Sisters shouted, “She still has not done. She still has not!”

Alienora screamed as if to rip the night.

The vision turned to white, and a new one came. I saw the trees of the Great Forest. A spear of sunlight broke through the thick branches and spread golden light upon the yellow and red wildflowers that carpeted the ground, surrounded with bursts of fern. I knew this place. It was near Mere Morwenna’s cottage, near a brook.

Alienora, in her nun’s garb, rode upon one of her father’s white horses, swiftly across the Forest floor. My vision followed her as she went. She had no child with her, and I was sore afraid that my child might not have survived the night of storms at its own birth.

She dismounted near the grassy path that led to Mere Morwenna’s humble home. She tied her horse to a birch just to the edge of the path. The house, a hovel really, seemed to be tucked into the arm of a low oak branch, sprayed with mistletoe across its roof, like a crown.

Mere Morwenna, her back stooped and the veil across her face drawn down revealing a woman who looked to be a hundred or more, leaned against her rough-hewn walking staff as she stood by the deerskin-covered doorway.

“I saw you, child,” the old woman said, brushing the strands of long gray hair back from her forehead. “I heard you were coming from the birds. Why are you alone?”

“I seek your help, Mere,” Alienora said. “I’ve left the order. I cannot abide them.”

“And you seek me out because you can abide me? I thought you were afraid of those of us who practice the Old Ways.”

“I would not be here if I was. I was told you can help me.”

“Help? How?”

“My dreams,” Alienora said. “I have had them for months now. Even after the birth of...after everything. I have seen Aleric die and return from the dead. A darkness whispers to me, and will not let me sleep.”

“You have come for the Craft. But you believe we are wives of demons, as well.”

“I do not,” Alienora said. She fell to her knees before the old woman. She clutched at her skirt with her hands, weeping. “I begin to see these things in daylight. The Sisters cannot help me. I have turned to God, but God does not speak to me or answer my prayers. I have turned to the Madonna of the Caves, and she is silent as well.”

“It was your family that has murdered friends of mine,” Mere Morwenna said. “How do I know this is not a trick?”

“You have my word,” Alienora said. “My father would have me imprisoned just for speaking with you. I would not risk taking a horse through the Forest alone if I did not think that my soul and the soul of my beloved rested upon your guidance. You know him. You have love for him.”

“He was like a grandson to me, that boy, though I saw the destiny of clouds upon his face even as a baby,” Mere Morwenna said. She closed her eyes and began to cough. “I can feel him sometimes, though he is thousands of leagues away. His mother was special to me. They were of the old clans.” She opened her eyes again, a harsh gaze. “What do you want?”

“I want to learn the Old Ways,” Alienora said.

“For power.” Mere Morwenna’s voice cracked as she said this. “As your father seeks power by slaughtering others, so you seek power. It is in your corrupt blood. You want to become one of us, do you? To save his soul?”

“I know that the Christian God will not protect him. Will not save him. But I had a nurse as a child named Nolwen. She was of the Forest.”

“I knew her.”

“She taught me about the goddess. About Cerne, as well. She showed me how to put the grain beneath the pillow to ensure the birth of a boy.”

“It is a blessing that your father didn’t have her tortured,” Mere Morwenna said. “Go on your way, you Magdalen imposter. Return to your safe little cave or your father’s household. Your dreams may not even be true.”

Alienora’s face darkened. She turned about and walked a few steps away from the old woman. Then she turned again, raising her fist to the sky as if cursing the gods. Mere Morwenna had never stopped watching her. “Grant me what I ask! I have seen such terrible shadows in my dreams that I cannot pretend they are born of fever.”

Mere Morwenna lifted her walking staff as if it were a wand. She shook it with some violence in Alienora’s direction. “Do you think that you can come here and demand to become an initiate in the rites of the goddess? That you can just decide one day that your beliefs do not bring you enough bounty? That you can avert destiny only by magick? And when you are done, when you have fixed your problem, will you not return to your safe sisterhood of ignorance and prejudice and live in a grotto that was once sacred to a great spiritual leader of our people but now has been usurped by a conquering god? Do you think that statue you worship is of your religion? That is an ancient statue, a black stone, and though you believe it is one of your many Marys, it is truly something altogether different. Something that would make your skin crawl, my sweet, misguided child!”

Alienora stepped back two or three paces among the tall grasses, shocked by the anger in the crone’s voice.

But from the deerskin doorway, someone emerged. It was the changeling child, Calyx, grown to maidenhood, the one I had once looked at by pulling up the veil of a baby. She still wore a cloak and veil, and only her eyes could be seen. She limped slightly as she went to Mere Morwenna.

“Grandmother,” Calyx said, her voice mature beyond her years. “Listen to her. I, too, have had dreams like these. It is a sign. The time of shadows is near.”

“A sign of destruction,” Mere Morwenna said.

The girl ignored her grandmother and went past her to Alienora. She took her hand up in hers and brought it up to her face. “You are on the path,” the girl said. “You dream of the Falconer?”

Alienora nodded.

“He is lost,” Calyx said. Then, to Mere Morwenna, “She’s meant to be among us. It’s her journey. You know you cannot interrupt what must be, no matter how you wish or it will come to you with threefold vengeance.”

Then her voice softened as she dropped Alienora’s hand. “You will join us on the night you call Lammas Eve, although it is a special night of Lugh, lord of the first harvest. One will come to you within the grove of trees beyond the grotto. He will wear a mask, and you must not speak to him. He will blindfold you and raise you onto his mount, and you will ride with him to our festivities.”

Calyx reached up and touched Alienora’s forehead. She kept her hand there for a while, pressing her fingers about her scalp. “Your dreams haunt you. Shadows are upon you. You were meant to come to us, lady. You were meant to follow this path. You do not believe in what you have been raised to believe. You are full of dread and fear, and yet you still possess love. That is good. Love for children, love for yourself, love for the man called the Falconer, love for your father and brother and sisters, and love even for the Magdalens with their bitter darkness. Before you come to us, before you begin to understand the wisdom of the Old Ways, you must give up all that you love. For life is endless pain if we are too attached to things that pass and are lost. You will come to an understanding of what life is, and what is beyond it, in the Wisdom.”

Then the veiled maiden withdrew her hand. For just a moment, she reminded me of a statue as she stood there—where had I seen that statue before? Some small figurine, perhaps, maybe among my mother’s things. She was cloaked from head to toe, with one hand up, palm out, and the other also outstretched as if offering passage to someone. I reached out into the Glass, feeling as if I could touch the vision and longing to feel just once Alienora’s skin beneath my fingers.

I had interrupted the vision—it rippled and swirled again, and I saw further into Alienora’s days.

I watched as she appeared before a great gathering of the believers of the Old Ways. Though many wore masks on their faces, some did not. They had formed a great circle within a clearing of the Forest. All were naked, and Mere Morwenna herself was the priestess of these folk. I watched as Alienora became an initiate in the Old Ways, then followed her as she worked with the midwives and learned the lore of the Forest and field. It all had happened in a short span of time.

Winter approached, and I saw her again, but this time, she had begun screaming at Mere Morwenna’s granddaughter. “You lied! Your goddess and gods cannot help me! Your power is useless! You are as damned to Hell as any in creation! My prayers are not answered, my dreams do not go away! I live among the Sisters and pretend with them, then come to your gatherings and speak your secret words, but it is as fruitless as the God of the Church!” Her face had taken on a strange aspect, as if she had not slept in weeks. I wondered about my child but had no sight of him.

When Alienora reined in her fury, Calyx crossed her hands, palms out to Alienora. “You have stolen our secrets. It was foretold that you would come, but I did not know what guided you. You do not love your offspring, nor the man you have lost. You have let your dreams rule you, and your fears are your master. That is not the path, and it is not the way of the Forest. You are bound, herewith, to keep the secrets of Bran and Cerne, and of the Old Ways.”

“You witches have no power,” Alienora spat. I had never seen her so angry, so bitter. “You are weak and deal in potions and spells and pointless ritual. I need more. I want more.”

And then the Glass began to fade in and out, as the sun might when clouds cross before it. I saw glimpses of things, of people, and a boy of two who might have been the son I had never met, although I did not know from the vision.

Finally, winter had come to the Forest, and there was my beloved standing amid the ice and snow. Her face was ashen, and her hair had grown wild and untended. She stood at the edge of a dark bog that was ringed by brambles and vines.

She spoke into the water as if it could hear her. Gradually, as I watched, her voice came to me in whispers, “You are more ancient than any in the Forest,” she said to her reflection in the bog. “The shadows bring me here to call you from the deep. You are the one of shadows and darkness, upon whom I gaze among the Magdalen caves. You are the one carved in rock there, and I have heard from the great ceremonies that you were vanquished and live now in dark places. I have heard of a man who once came to you to beg for power, and you gave it to him that he might drive the invaders from our land. I call to you now, though it is forbidden of the Old Ways to do so. I call to you to come from the depths, to come from the darkness of your abode. I ask for your aid for I have seen terrible things in my mind, and I cannot rid myself of them. If there is power to save one who is damned, then I must have it, for I will not live upon this Earth without my beloved’s safe return.”