“WAKE up, Wren, we’re here,” Merlin said wearily. His neck and shoulders ached from rowing the little boat through the marshes surrounding the islands of Avalon. He’d taken the long and twisted route here to confuse any who might have followed them to the sacred isles rising sharply above water level.
At low tide causeways existed between some of the islands. Treacherous marshes hid the stepping places. He didn’t want an enemy to learn the route. So he took a different path each time he came here.
“W-what?” Wren opened her eyes and looked around sleepily. She’d never been a good sailor and usually sought relief from a queasy stomach in sleep.
“Take the rope and lash the bow to the dock, Wren. We have arrived at Avalon. The Morrigan awaits you.” The new Morrigan, not his Deirdre. Wren’s mother had died in childbirth, as Dana had told him she would. He didn’t know the new High Priestess of Britain well. He’d had minimal contact with her over the past nine years.
He heaved a sigh. He missed Deirdre, especially now that Wren approached womanhood and looked so much like her. He missed Deirdre more than any of the others of his kind. Wren’s mother had been his friend for many years before he finally succumbed to the inevitable and took her as a lover that one fateful Beltane night. He had no regrets. That one lapse in his lifelong celibacy had given him Wren, a most beautiful and promising daughter. Wren provided wonderful companionship and had proved a discreet confidante. But... but some things a man just did not share with his daughter.
And now the time had come to entrust her training to The Morrigan.
Aching emptiness gnawed a hole in his gut. He wouldn’t see Wren, or communicate with her for many years to come. Her training would be intense; she needed to sever all ties with her old life in order to complete it.
A part of him hoped she would refuse to stay, that they could continue to be together as they had her entire life.
She needed peace to learn magic and wisdom. His life with Ardh Rhi Uther’s army would not be peaceful. She needed the company of women to learn to be a woman. The only women accompanying the men to war would teach her the wrong things about being a woman.
“Dana, let me live long enough to see her again,” he whispered a prayer.
“Did you say something, Da?” Wren asked as she tied a competent knot in the rope. She scrambled onto the dock.
On another day, in another time, he’d have teased her about her hasty exit from the boat. Not today. Not when he was about to lose her — no, he wouldn’t lose her. They’d just have to endure a separation. The first since her birth.
“I didn’t say anything important, Wren. Just that I’ll miss you.”
“That’s important, Da. I still don’t see why I have to live here. You could teach me more than the Ladies of Avalon.” She set her chin in stubborn mode. She looked so like Deirdre he almost believed her alive again.
“There are many things only The Morrigan can teach you, Wren. Accept it. You will stay here until she determines you ready to go out into the world again.” The ache in his gut grew wider with every argument.
Maybe he could keep her with him?
No. He had to let her go. Let her grow.
She glared at him in silence, the worst possible rebuke she could give him. He almost relented and rowed back to the mainland with her rather than endure her silent displeasure.
“Come, Wren. We must find The Morrigan. I am not allowed to remain at the Ladies’ enclave after sundown. No man is except on Beltane.” He climbed onto the dock. The island rose steeply from a narrow landing area. Groves of apple trees swarmed up the slopes. Sweet blossoms filled the air with an intoxicating perfume. He drank deeply of the scents, relishing the lush greenery.
He remembered the Solstice night the year he turned fourteen. He had climbed the tor of Avalon along with a dozen other young men, Druids in training. The treacherous and convoluted ritual labyrinth had challenged his ingenuity and his endurance. But he had negotiated the traps and illusions without mishap. Not all of his companions had been successful.
“I wonder if I have time to climb up there and back before sunset?” he said. He could always seek a night’s shelter with the Christian hermit on the other side of the island.
Every time he’d climbed the tor he’d been filled with a sense of accomplishment, of completeness. He wished for that again, knowing he’d be incomplete until Wren returned to him. Climbing the tor again wouldn’t accomplish anything other than his own fatigue.
Wren shrugged and looked away from the peak of the tor, still not speaking to him. He longed to rush forward and enfold her in his arms. She’d likely push him away in her current mood. He didn’t want to part from her with rejection and recriminations. He didn’t want to part from her at all.
Three heavily cloaked and hooded figures appeared on the path that wound down the lower slopes of the tor. A fourth figure trailed several paces behind. She threw back the hood of her cloak defiantly, exposing a thick mane of auburn hair.
Merlin raised one eyebrow in question.
Wren edged back toward the boat until she bumped into Merlin’s chest. She shrank within her own cloak at sight of the beautiful red-haired girl near her own age.
“You have no reason to be shy, my Wren. You are as beautiful as any woman alive.”
She snorted her disbelief of that statement. “What is happening, Da?” she asked, straightening her shoulders and standing away from him. “There is something strange about that girl....”
“Strange? Is it strange that an acolyte of Avalon is very beautiful?” he chuckled.
Wren turned and glared at him again.
Then the lead figure stepped onto the dock. She raised her face and looked into Merlin’s eyes.
“My Lady Morrigan.” He bowed deeply toward her. She must have had a name before she became High Priestess. No one remembered it now. She embodied the Goddess and thus was known only by her title.
“My Lord Merlin,” she replied, inclining her head. He had another name as well but rarely used it.
“I have brought my daughter, as I promised.”
“I didn’t promise,” Wren muttered.
The Morrigan cocked her head. A buttery blonde curl escaped her hood. A decade of care and worry seemed to melt from her face, bringing her seeming age much closer to Wren’s than The Merlin’s.
“We must beg a favor of you, My Lord Merlin,” The Morrigan said, returning her gaze to him. Her blue eyes clouded with regret.
“If it is within my power, My Lady.” He inclined his head.
“One of our number has died. Her family has requested her body be returned to them for funeral rites.” She swallowed heavily and continued. “We are so few now, I cannot spare another Lady to accompany her on her final journey. Her nephew will meet you on the mainland near the Roman church at the three sacred wells.”
“So few?” The last Merlin had known, the number of Ladies diminished each year, but surely a dozen at least remained. They had new acolytes each year. The beautiful redhead studied here. She couldn’t be much older than Wren.
“So few. We are but seven and this one leaves us permanently to return to her family.” The Morrigan gestured toward the end of the line of those who accompanied her.
The redhead tossed her hair defiantly. She opened her mouth to speak, but the other two women each raised a hand, palm outward gesturing for silence.
“If their numbers are so few, then they can’t teach me properly. I’ll learn more if I stay with you, Da,” Wren said. She stepped back toward the hated boat, a sure sign of her determination to leave.
“Nimuë must leave us. Her father’s servants will arrive with their barge when the tide is full and the passage easy,” The Morrigan said to Merlin. Then she turned back to Wren. “We can teach you all you need to know, Arylwren. We will delight in helping you explore your talent as well as your destiny.” An aura of love and power radiated from her head. The layers of blue and yellow reached out to enfold Wren, almost as if The Morrigan clasped her in a welcoming embrace.
The welcome stopped abruptly at The Merlin’s toes.
“Will you stay with us, Wren? Will you grow into your full potential and lead us into a new age?”
Wren took a hesitant step forward. “What can you teach me that my father cannot?”
The Morrigan smiled. Her aura pulsed. Merlin sensed she shared mind images with Wren. He wished he could join in the incredible bond developing between the priestess and his daughter.
“Aye, I’ll stay a while. As long as you can teach me.” Wren nodded her acceptance as well.
Merlin’s heart sank. Wren had committed herself. He had to leave her. No last-minute miracle would let her return with him.
“Father Merlin.” The Morrigan touched his arm. A sense of urgency snaked up his skin from the point of contact despite her placid expression. “Dyfrig came looking for you at the full moon.”
A cold lump landed in his belly. He tried to isolate it before it froze every muscle and emotion in him. He didn’t trust his voice to reply calmly, so he lifted one eyebrow in question. But his left hand stole up to finger his torc before he could control the instinctive gesture.
“He left a message.” The Morrigan pulled a scrap of parchment from her pocket.
The Merlin stuffed the roll into his sach without reading it. He guessed the contents. His mother asked for him. For three decades the only contact with his brother had been these brief notes asking him to contact his brother but not to trouble their mother with his presence.
He never contacted his twin brother.
“I entrust your care and education to these good Ladies, Wren,” he said, rather too formally. He wanted to crush his daughter to his breast and never let her go, as his mother had not done to him when Blaise, the last Merlin, had claimed him for formal training.
Wren nodded. A fat tear dropped from her eyelashes down her cheek to touch the corner of her mouth.
Tenderly, he wiped it away.
“Come with me now, Wren,” The Morrigan invited. “We will rest and sup. Your training begins tomorrow at dawn.” She turned to retreat up the tor.
“Good luck. She wasn’t able to teach me anything,” Nimuë, the redhead, said with a sneer. “I’m glad to leave.”
“When you are willing to learn, you may come back. I hope you have at least learned that you must work to discover true knowledge buried deep within you. Information and routines handed to you sit on the surface and fade quickly,” The Morrigan replied.
Nimuë sniffed and marched to the end of the dock. She stared at the water as if willing her father’s barge to magically appear before her.
“I will take the girl away. Her father can meet her on the mainland,” Merlin said. Why had he offered? Something about the girl fascinated him. Not a sexual attraction. He’d never succumb to that again, the experience had cost him much, despite giving him Wren. But the girl had something special, perhaps a true magical talent... perhaps...
“Da?” Wren’s soft voice drew him out of his reverie. “Da, I’ll miss you.” She threw her arms about his waist and hugged him tight.
“I’ll miss you, too, Wren. More than you can know.” Tears nearly choked him. He’d be so lonely....
“Promise you will look after Curyll for me, Da. Stinger, Boar, and Ceffyl, too. They may be men, but they still need looking after.”
“Yes, Wren, I will look after your friends and do all in my power to keep them safe.” He clutched her tight, afraid to say more lest he openly cry.
“Visit me, Da. Visit me often. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.” Wren sobbed. Her tears dampened his tunic.
“I’ll come when the time is right. Look for me within the dawn mists, little Wren. Sing sweetly across the water, and I will meet you.”
She cried openly now.
“Sing for me when the time is right.” Tears streamed down his own cheeks despite his effort to hold them back.