CHAPTER 47

“Whoo-ooo-ooo!”

The warning cry of the owl hung over the mere.

“The messenger of the Goddess,” said the Maiden softly. Her voice in the dark was like the plashing of a water vole.

The sign of a witch, thought Brother Sylvester venomously. But he kept it to himself and bent all his efforts on following the slim figure ahead who flitted forward through the night. The midnight call of the Maiden had wakened him and Iachimo from a dead sleep. They needed to keep their wits about them now.

It would help if they knew where they were going, or why. Sylvester grimaced, hating to have his fate in others’ hands. He had pressed relentlessly for a meeting with the Lady, determined to tackle the old jezebel and flush her out of her lair. When the Maiden led them toward the water, he knew that they were not going to the Lady’s house high under the hill. But it must be a summons to encounter the witch in one of her secret caves, the hidden Lake grottoes around the shore.

The going was hard around the edge of the Lake. The water lapped at stones made smooth for a thousand years, and the shoreline came and went beneath their feet. They were floundering in and out of the shallows in the gloom, and already their habits were soaked to the knees and beyond. The thin sliver of moon waning palely overhead gave little or no light, and already they had lost track of where they were. Sylvester gritted his teeth. Be with us, Lord. Help us to give, and not to count the cost, to labor and not to seek for any reward, save that of knowing that we do Thy will.

Behind him he could hear Brother Iachimo’s regular breathing and heavy splashing as he waded along. His tough, squat companion would not fail, he knew. Iachimo had been a warrior for Christ in far worse places than this. True, he was not one of the spiritually gifted of God. But he wore his scars with pride and had been a doughty second in the war against the pagan whores waged here.

And tonight would see another decisive battle in this holy fight. Tonight they would encounter the Great Whore, and put her to flight. They would do what Boniface and Giorgio had failed to do, and prove to her that her days were done. Not by appealing to the devil between her legs—that tactic had been imperfectly conceived at best, and then entrusted to two green boys. No, God’s power, man’s authority, the right of command, these were the ways to wear down a witch.

Unconsciously Sylvester’s hand rose to his tonsure, and he smoothed down the remains of his hair. He was the man to put the so-called Lady in her place. And he would not fail that glorious task tonight.

Ahead of them the Maiden stopped and pointed through the dark. “There,” she said.

Already she had made this announcement twice as she led them around the isle. She did it to confuse them, Sylvester knew. If the Lady refused to see them in her house, she clearly meant to ensure that they could never return to her Lakeside cave again. But in the hours they had spent splashing around at the edge of the water, he had begun to wonder if their guide herself really knew where they were. A vague, ghostly presence in wraps of wispy green, she hardly seemed to know anything at all.

But this time she pointed firmly up the shore toward the black mass of the island ahead. A few paces brought them to a broken cliff face with a cluster of massive rocks tumbled in front. The maiden slipped behind one, then another, till they were hard pressed to keep on her trail. At last a low archway opened in the rock face. A dim light shone from the unseen space within, and the Maiden motioned them on.

“Go,” she said in her soft, watery voice. “I shall await you here.”

Sylvester paused to settle his habit into place, and adjusted the rough rope binding his waist. He glanced at Iachimo, standing stolidly at his side. Raising his eyebrows, he received a simple nod. With a breath and a prayer, Sylvester bent his head, ducked under the arch, and plunged in.

The passage was dark and slimy, its roof no more than three feet from the ground and dripping with icy water from above. Stumbling forward, crouching in the dark, he knocked his forehead sharply against the overhanging rock, and could feel constant cold wet trickles down his neck. As he emerged, flushed and tense, from the passageway and looked around, he knew for sure that the poised figures awaiting them in the cave had not come in that way.

One enclosed lantern burned in the hollow space. By its dim light he saw two female figures veiled from head to foot. Above their heads, the roof of the cave was lost in darkness, and great stalactites floated down from the damp void. Underfoot, the wet stones gave way to firm dry sand. Lurking in the shadows at the rear of the cave were a group of Lake dwellers leaning on their staves. Their bright eyes squinting out from beneath their thick black mats of long tangled hair, they rustled together quietly without speech.

“So!” Brother Sylvester coughed, and stepped forward to take control. He turned interrogatively from one to the other of the two shrouded forms. “Which is the Lady here, you, or you?”

The shorter nodded. “I am the Lady,” came a spare, rusty voice. “Address me.”

I wonder, Brother Sylvester thought sourly to himself. Aloud he said heartily, “You have done good work, Lady, on this isle. You have kept a sacred trust for a thousand years.” He nodded encouragingly to the Lake dwellers standing behind. “As I’m sure these good folk would say.”

The muffled figure bowed and spread her arms.

“You are gracious, monk.”

Brother Sylvester stiffened. Was he mistaken, or had he caught a rustle of dry amusement from behind the all-enveloping veil? He drew himself up. “But change comes to us all. In former times, God’s truth was unrevealed. His plan for His children was not known.”

There was an echoing silence in the cave. The monk pressed on. “That means myself and my brother here. It means all of us. It means you. For a thousand years, you and your sisters have borne the burden of maintaining sacred worship in this place. Now we are sent to aid you in your task.”

“Aid us? Or replace us?” The hoarse voice from behind the veil was not amused now.

Sylvester summoned up his smoothest smile. “To share with you the love and care of the great sacred relics you have here. What has been holy to you for so long must command our worship too.” He paused for a little specious flattery. “Your Hallows are things of matchless beauty, we hear.”

“And value, too.” The short figure nodded. “Your faith of Christ began among the poor, the slaves, the oppressed. You have no such things. You have no gold.”

“Not as you do,” Sylvester agreed, biting back hot resentment as he spoke. A witch like this to condescend to him? This pagan whore to disdain the men who followed Christ?

A poisoned pang of envy seized his soul. Yes, it was true that the followers of the Goddess honored their Great One with showers of gold, and every other precious thing they owned. Swords and cauldrons of bronze, plates and urns of silver, jeweled knives and collars, rings, chains, and ropes of gold, all found their way into their sacred lakes. God’s curse on them! He cast a hungry glance around the bare cave. Elsewhere on Avalon, he knew, there were grottoes, caverns, hollows in the rock packed with the sacrifices generations had made, cast into the Lake as offerings, and retrieved by the maidens who swam through the deep.

And this great prize, this gold and silver hoard must be his object now. Swallowing, he made his voice like velvet again. “True, Lady, we poor Christians have no gold. Yet we love beauty as you do, and see the glory of our Creator in fine things.”

He paused. Behind him he could hear Iachimo’s steady breath, and felt his companion urging him on. “Therefore we beg a boon. Grant us to join our prayers with your sacred worship when you next honor your Goddess and reveal these sacred Hallows of yours.”

“You wish to join our worship?”

The voice was as thin and dry as a leaf in the wind. Beside her the taller woman tensed and seemed to grow.

Sylvester felt a strange sensation around his heart. But he stiffened his will and plunged on. “We wish to see these things with our own eyes. We want to honor their Maker with our words and prayers. In time we hope to aid you in the care of them. And through them, working together, we may bring the common folk to the knowledge and love of the One who made us all.”

He finished with the sense of a speech well made. Surely that final flourish must carry the day. So he was not dissatisfied when the Lady bowed, and said that she would consider the request. She could consider all she wished, he assured Iachimo on the way home. It was not as though hers was the final word. God held them all in the hollow of His hand. Sooner or later they would know that truth.

With polite farewells, the two monks were dispatched into the night. The two veiled figures stood and watched them go in a brooding silence that filled the cave. At last the shorter of the two unveiled her face, and cast the flimsy draperies to the ground.

“So, Lady?” Nemue said.

The taller form shuddered, and the slow music of the Lady’s voice sounded through the shadows of the void. “They want the Hallows. And they mean to have them now.”

“Lady, no!” Nemue’s lithe frame tensed and grew cold. At the rear of the cave, the Lake dwellers hissed and murmured in distress.

The Lady nodded. “True, Nemue,” she said, her lyrical tones finding their deepest note. “The two monks who came before have failed in their masters’ plan. These newcomers are hardier warriors for their God.” She paused. “And cleverer too. How can we begrudge them sight of our holy things? How can we deny them their right of prayer?’’

Nemue’s closed face flowered with rage. “They would refuse us the same request! More, they would punish all who dared to ask.”

“But we may not punish too.”

“They are prepared to kill!” Nemue’s cry was that of an animal in the snare. “Lady, remember what happened to Guenevere! They hounded her unjustly as far as the stake!”

“Their evil will not justify our wrong.”

“Where may we draw the line?” Nemue cried. She could feel her soul filling with thunder as she spoke. “The island of Avalon is still our sacred place. Forbid them, Lady, refuse them admittance here! Kill them, if need be! Theirs is a faith of death.”

Already her hand was on the hilt of her dagger, and she thought with fierce joy of her stabbing sword. All the other maidens had trained as warriors too, and the Lake folk would tear to pieces any man the Lady called an enemy.

Kill them, yes! Nemue’s sight swam. She saw the two monks given to the Dark Mother at Imbolc, on the feast of death, their blood pouring out to nourish the good earth. She saw the Lady at the altar wielding the Great One’s sword of power and Her spear of defense. The mighty weapons sang their ancient song, and bright gold and jewels flashed before her eyes.

She seized her dagger, and raised it over her head. “Kill them!” she cried.

Through the silence fell a sigh from the astral plane, a breath of all the world’s defeat and loss.

“No, my dear,” came the low sound of the Lady’s voice. “Even to save ourselves, we may not persecute, deny, or kill. We must leave the Christians to their religion of death and hate. Ours is a faith of love.”

ACROSS AVALON, the two monks lay sleepless in their cell.

Sylvester stared unseeing through the dark. In their long discussions since they had returned, he had found more to rejoice in than Iachimo.

“They will not permit it,” the second of the two monks said. “We will not be admitted to worship with the whores. We will not be granted the sight of their holy things.”

Sylvester smiled. “But it does not matter, brother, anymore. We know now that they will not resist. Indeed, they cannot. If all their force consists of women and girls, and a pack of water dwellers armed with sticks, they’ll be no match for a dozen tough young monks. Hear me, Iachimo. We shall send for a few of the right sort to increase our numbers here. Then, when the moment comes, we shall simply take them away.”

In the darkness his pale eyes passed from water to fire. “The Holy Grail, brother!” he breathed, entranced. “It is in our hands! It will be ours!”