Chapter Eight

After seventeen miserable days tracing old Roman roads north from Avalon with Morgan and a handful of guards, this was not the homecoming I had envisioned. I expected to be greeted warmly at the gates by my family and long-estranged friends, but there was nary a soul present to welcome us home, not even a wandering dog.

Our guards shouted out our arrival. A moment later, the entry doors opened and we were ushered quickly inside the gates with only the merest of polite greetings, as if those inside feared to speak with us. While the others hurried quickly indoors, I lingered in the doorway, drawing comfort from the feeling of protection the thick walls of the fortress gave me.

“My Lady, do come inside.”

My thoughts were interrupted by the nasal Midland accent of a blond serving girl who had mysteriously appeared by my side. She tugged on my arm with outrageous familiarity not befitting a woman of her rank. I thought to chastise her for it, but she quickly whisked me away before I could speak.

The fire popped and crackled in the hearth as we stood in the foyer, anxiously awaiting some acknowledgement of our presence. Morgan and I avoided eye contact, still refusing to speak to one another, clinging to the grudge that had begun to fester on Beltane and had only grown worse with time. I still harbored a pit of jealousy over her selection as the Virgin Queen. She had grown secretive and developed a bitter edge in the aftermath of the ritual—I guessed because she had not fulfilled her duty by conceiving a child—using her long-practiced hatred of me as an outlet, never letting me forget she had been chosen and I swept aside. We were only together now because she was ordered to accompany me. I could not wait to bid her farewell.

Time passed slowly, and I began to wonder if my father was even in residence at the moment; perhaps that was why we were so coldly welcomed. Finally, the maid reappeared in the doorway and announced the master of the house was otherwise engaged, but we were all to bathe and rest; my father would entertain our company at dinner.

It was strange that my father would not come to welcome me himself, but it had been many years since I was a resident of this house. Schedules and decorum could change in far less time.

Though I needed no assistance finding my way up to my old chamber, the maid insisted on accompanying me. I planned to return to Avalon after our mourning period, but Argante had insisted I bring a small bag with me. Without thinking, I began to unpack what remained of my life on the isle: a few sundry mementos and the two blue robes I was given to wear when performing my duties as a priestess at births, funerals, and other sacred events.

“Please, my Lady, allow me.”

The squeaky, small voice of the maid pulled me out of my memories. For a moment I simply looked back at her, uncomprehending. Then I realized I had grown so accustomed to doing things for myself in Avalon, I forgot the same actions were unthinkable in this world.

Unsure of how to comport myself, I busied myself by admiring the tapestry hanging on the wall above my bed. The hanging depicted a beautiful young maiden befriending a unicorn as a host of faeries and other nature spirits looked on. It was a scene from one of my favorite childhood stories—a tale my mother recounted on many dark winter nights in front of the fire. She and I had just begun constructing the tapestry shortly before the Irish raid and the whirlwind that whisked me away to Avalon. It pleased me to see she had completed it in my absence. I could only wonder if each stitch gave her comfort in knowing she had set her daughter on the path the Goddess intended, or if each dip of the needle pricked at her heart, tormenting her conscience over sending her young daughter so far away.

Alas I would never know; she was not here to ask.

I wiped a tear from my cheek and, without a word to the maid, fled from the room on silent feet, seeking sanctuary, somewhere familiar to get my bearings. Rushes, stone, and dirt passed as a blur beneath my toes, and when I next raised my head, I found myself in the armory.

It was strangely quiet, so I knew I was alone. But if I stopped and listened, I could hear the soldiers practicing not far away.

Their grunts and clamor carried on the wind. For a moment, I even fooled myself into believing my mother’s authoritative voice commanded and corrected them, but when I really attuned my ears, I found that Rhys, captain of my father’s guard, had taken her place as drill master.

Little had changed in this land of iron, bronze, and leather. Gear for each man was still neatly stacked on shelves against one wall, ready at all times for battle, while scores of javelins, swords, daggers, polished bronze-and-wooden shields, and other weaponry lined the racks. I inhaled, savoring the unique bouquet only the close quarters of an armory could produce—the heavy scent of tanned hides, stale sweat, the sharp tang of polish, and just a little wood smoke from the temporarily silent forge. Strange as it may have seemed, this was the scent of home.

Of course my feet would lead me here; it had been my favorite place as a child. Before I was old enough to walk, my mother carried me as she inspected the equipment. I was fascinated by the glimmer of sunlight on the metal objects that surrounded me, entranced as though in a crystal cave. Later, once I could feed myself, she gave me a tiny blunted dagger, which eventually gave way to a wooden sword when my lessons began. Then finally, only two years before I went to Avalon, she bestowed on me my first real sword, a miniature version of her own. I could still picture the intricately crafted pommel and feel the twists of braided metal in my clenched fist.

I sought out my sword now, as eager for its reassuring touch as a babe for her favorite blanket. In the far corner, the tall chest containing my father’s arms and armor stood slightly ajar. But its twin, which had held my mother’s fighting paraphernalia, had been removed, as had the small trunk that housed my sword and childhood armor. Dismayed, I picked through my father’s things, hoping he had decided to store it all in one case, but I found only his belongings.

Glancing wildly about me, I began searching for the treasure I could not believe was gone. But then I caught my reflection in one of the polished brass shields that hung on the wall and froze. I was not alone after all. Standing behind me to my left was a dark-haired woman. For a moment I thought it the shade of my mother, but when the figure advanced on me, it proved to be very human. Turning slowly, I tried to ignore the cold sweat blanketing the back of my neck at being caught where I ought not be.

“Octavia!” I exclaimed in a sigh of relief. My lady’s maid would give me up to no harm. I ran to her side and enveloped her in my arms, suddenly feeling so weak and weary that I had to draw my strength from her.

“Blessed child, you have returned to us.” Octavia smiled at me warmly, though her face still betrayed the sorrow in her heart. “Come, let us go outside. This is no place for a reunion.”

She led me into the sunlit courtyard, and we stood watching the warriors spar while she insisted on hearing every last detail of my time in Avalon. While I was happy to oblige her with tale after tale, somewhere in the back of my mind I knew we were both simply delaying an inevitable conversation. Finally, in a moment of silence, I could take no more.

“Oh, Octavia,” I cried, a surge of hot tears racing down my face. “I wish Mother were here so she could know all that has happened to me.” I clung to the older woman’s shoulders, surprised at the force of my own emotion. Burying my face in her long black ringlets, I choked on my tears.

“I know. So do I.” She placed her hands on my shoulders and tipped up my face to meet her eyes. “But one thing is for certain, she hears you now, and she is very proud of you.”

“Do you think so?”

“I know so.” She kissed me on the forehead.

I smiled weakly. “Octavia.” I licked my suddenly dry lips. “I have to know. The baby—was it my brother or my sister?”

“It was a boy.” She hesitated a moment. “That is why your father was so upset. It was the heir to the kingdom he had been praying for. Now it will likely pass to your cousin Bran.”

I thought I was the heir to his kingdom. I frowned. I would bring this up with my father when I next saw him.

Octavia saw my puzzled expression and attempted to explain. “Your father has placed a greater emphasis on his Roman heritage, of late. Despite all of the pregnancies your mother lost and babes who died young, your father had always hoped for a son to pass his kingdom on to, so that it would not fall into another lord’s—your future husband’s—hands upon his death.”

I started to protest.

Octavia waved away my rebuttal. “I know your mother intended you to inherit, but Northgallis is a long way from the traditions she endorsed, so your father had a valid concern. Then with the death of the boy child and of your mother, all of his dreams fell apart. You were so far away. He felt he had nothing.”

“Nothing?” Anger flared within me, heating my cheeks and quickly drying my tears to an invisible crust. “Is that what I am? Is that why my mother’s arms are gone, so that not a memory of her remains? And what of my sword? Have I no say in the placement of my own possessions?”

Octavia clasped my hands in hers and regarded me gravely. “Your mother’s sword is buried with her, as is her right of honor. As for yours. . .” She hesitated. “Your father melted it down. He wishes no more training of the kind for you.”

I gaped and attempted to interrupt, but Octavia held up a hand to silence me.

“Guinevere, your father is not the same man you left here all those years ago. He has changed so much. Many things, many traditions died with your mother. You must realize that. Take what I have told you into consideration when you see your father, and do not be too hard on him. Have pity on him instead.”

The weight of her words lay on my shoulders like chain mail. I could not respond. I had hoped to return to a place of warmth and love, but instead found myself in a house full of perplexing strangers.

Could four years really change so much?

Late that night, when the candles burned low and all the servants had gone to bed, I padded barefoot along the corridors, searching for my father. He had not shown up to dinner, so Octavia, Morgan, and I ate our meal in awkward silence amid the gaping stares of a handful of servants I did not know. They were obviously curious about me, and more so about Morgan—especially given the tension that sparked the air between us—but fortunately knew their place well enough not to ask questions.

Later, as I lay my head on the pillow, willing the racing questions in my mind to cease, I finally accepted sleep would not come until I saw my father again. He was not in his room and his attendant was fast asleep, so I set out to find him, stealing through halls that seemed much smaller than my childhood memories would have me believe.

The kitchen was abandoned, as was the great hall, so I began to trace the corridors, peeking into unlocked storage areas and long-abandoned living quarters. With every beat of my heart, my conviction grew. I had to see my father, to know that he still cared for me, despite his recent change in attitude. He was my last living link to my mother, and I his. As the thought skittered across my mind, I began to wonder if that was why he had yet to greet me; maybe I reminded him too much of her.

I slowed as I neared a room near the end of the hall on the uppermost floor. The soft flicker of candlelight spilled out through a door slightly ajar. It took me a moment to orient myself and then my heart stopped as I realized where I was. This was my mother’s chamber.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, steeling myself with a few deep breaths. Splinters pricked my fingertips as I clawed at the wall and squeezed my eyes tight, fighting back memories of all the times I played in my mother’s wardrobe or sat on her footstool while she braided or brushed my hair. She had nursed me in that room through many ailments, insisting I would rest easier sleeping in her bed, with her warmth to soothe me. A shiver shimmied down my spine. She died in that bed. It was only natural my father would be there.

I pressed my lips together and tiptoed over to the door. I could barely make out my father’s silhouette in the pale light of the single candle burning on the windowsill like a beacon, silently calling my mother’s soul back to the place she so loved. I took another deep breath. I had thought myself prepared to face my father and all our missing years, but I was not ready to face my mother’s ghost as well.

I took a tentative step into the room, knowing my father would soon be able to see me out of the corner of his eye. “Father,” I called softly as I approached, not wanting him to mistake me for a specter.

He lifted his head and looked at me, at first unseeing as though I had roused him from a waking dream. Then slowly, comprehension dawned and he smiled, brushing away the tears staining his cheeks. “Guinevere,” he breathed. “Daughter, my heart warms to see you.”

I raced over to him and hugged him tightly, alarmed to feel fragile bone rather than the hard muscle of the warrior king I remembered. After a moment, he released me, holding me at arm’s length and squinting to consider me in the dim light.

“You are not a little child anymore.” He sighed.

I reached for a blanket draped over the edge of the bed and wrapped it around my shoulders. “That is true, but even grown women have need of their fathers,” I said, climbing up into his lap just like I did as a little girl.

He wrapped his arms around me, as if he feared I would disappear like the smoke rising from the candle wick. I closed my eyes and laid my head on the crook of his neck. His hair, now turning gray, still smelled of the same imported citrus oil that punctuated my youngest memories.

“You look just like her, you know,” he said in a small, soft voice. He paused thoughtfully before adding, “I miss her.”

“So do I,” I answered, tears streaming freely now.

In the silence, I could almost forget the years that had passed, that I was now fifteen and we were grieving the death of someone so dear. I could almost make myself believe I was still the little girl who had climbed into his arms after a terrible nightmare. And in some ways, I was, for this was the worst nightmare either of us could imagine.

“Please don’t leave me,” my father whispered in an unfamiliar tone of grief. He had always been so confident, so strong, but now he was broken, pleading. “Don’t go back to Avalon. I. . . I need you here.”

I pursed my lips, realizing he was right. Unfamiliar as it first seemed, this was my home. “I will stay. You will need someone to keep the servants in line.”

He laughed, the first joyful sound I had heard since coming home.

The following morning, I discovered Morgan had an ulterior motive for making the long journey to Northgallis. Not only was she seeing me safely returned to my family’s care in Viviane’s stead, but she was also under the Lady’s orders to accompany another of our household to her new life in Avalon. Octavia’s youngest, Nimue, a small plump girl who had inherited her mother’s thick mass of dark hair and her father’s haunting green eyes, was expressly requested to return to Avalon as its newest acolyte.

As Octavia and I watched them depart, memories of how quickly I bonded with Viviane came rushing back. If Nimue adored Morgan and clung to her as a mother figure like I had to Viviane, Nimue had little chance of emerging from her period of study with her innocent soul intact. Poor girl. I prayed for her sake she would take to some of the more kind-hearted priestesses like Grainne or Rowena instead. But I dared not voice this to Octavia. She was fretting enough for both of us.

“Nimue is too young. I should not have let them take her yet,” Octavia berated herself as she led me down a path over a gently sloping hill to the grove where my mother was buried. “A few more years and she would have been the same age as you were. She would have been old enough, prepared enough to survive this. First I sent Peredur off to be fostered. Now Nimue is gone too. Although I fear I had little choice. Not only did the Lady of the Lake request her presence, I could not very well let her grow up here. Your father would have sent her to a convent before the spring anyway.”

I stopped cold at her statement. “What did you say?”

She turned around at the sound of my voice, her pained expression making it obvious she knew she had transgressed. “Guinevere, I have told you your father is a changed man. It is time you knew the full extent.”

She led me into the grove of yew trees and sat me down on the soft grass before venturing into further explanation. “Your mother meant so much to Leodgrance that her death nearly drove him insane. For days he would neither eat nor sleep, only sit in her room and weep, uttering only a single word—why?—when visitors came to tend to him. For three days, he refused to allow her to be buried, insisting that she was not really dead. Then the fourth morning, he unexpectedly joined us at the breakfast table and announced she should be buried according to the rites and customs of her people. And so, she was laid to rest here.”

Octavia pointed toward the western end of the grove, where a large stone tablet protruded from the bare earth, which was stained red by ochre, a smattering of white quartz stones scattered at its base. The stones and pigment were talismans of the dead to my mother’s people, meant to ease the soul’s journey to the spirit world.

Slowly, painfully, fearfully, I made my way over to the burial site. Although my mother’s burial was performed according to her native traditions, the tombstone that marked her grave was set up by my father in the traditional Roman fashion of his ancestors. It bore the carved image of a slender, long-haired warrior woman in native dress, surrounded by thistles, her eyes cast to the heavens. I ran my hand over the rough surface of the stone, tracing the grooves as if doing so could bring her back again. Beneath the image was an inscription, which began—as all other Roman memorials did—with the words “Dis Manibus,” addressing the gods of the shades. It continued, “Corinna of the Votadini, wife of the king of Gwynedd, daughter of King Cunedda.” The memorial ended with the traditional Roman attribution naming the deceased’s patron. “Her husband Leodgrance set this up in her memory.”

I could no longer deny it. My mother really was dead. It was written in stone in front of me for the entire kingdom to see. The world around me faded in a blur of tears, and I dissolved in grief. Eventually Octavia’s arm encircled me, her warmth breathing life back into my frigid bones. I looked up, my eyes now parched from so much crying, never more grateful for this woman who, although officially a servant in my father’s employ, was also at once my confidant and dearest friend, more like family than many of my blood relations.

Octavia turned toward the fortress, shielding her eyes from the amber rays of the setting sun. “We must return home soon, Guinevere, but I have not yet finished what I wanted to say. I brought you here not only because you needed to come, but so you might better understand your father. You can see in this stone the love he possessed for your mother. After her burial, he was lost like a sailor without a star to guide him. He returned to his habit of sitting in her chamber. He spoke often of the dream that had prompted him to let her body go, though he would reveal its details to no one. We all knew he was still holding on to Corinna in spirit and feared what damage this would do to him. As he would speak to no one else, and your party from Avalon had not yet departed the isle, the local Christian priest was sent for in the hope that perhaps Leodgrance would speak to him.”

I bristled at the word Christian. I felt no enmity toward them as a group. In fact, they shared the Tor with us, also considering it sacred but for very different reasons. They believed Joseph of Arimathea, a follower of Jesus, settled there after Jesus’s crucifixion and brought with him magical relics of their savior. Today, they lived in crude huts of woven branches on the edges of the marsh, just beyond where the mists gave way to the outside world. But I had heard enough tales to know that not all Christians lived such humble, holy lives. Many considered the religion of Avalon in direct opposition to Christianity and, like the Romans before them, sought to destroy it. That fear was what made the hairs on my neck and arms stand at attention every time I heard the word.

Octavia noticed my reaction and patted my hand. “We did what we thought was best.” She sighed. “As it turned out, our good intentions only made things worse. The young priest, Father Marius, who came to our door did get your father to return somewhat to normal, but he also convinced him that his dream was a sign your father should give up the religion of his ancestors and embrace this new god, this Christ. Your father was so taken with this priest and his promises of an eternal life that he willingly agreed, intent on dragging the rest of us along with him.”

She pulled me to my feet, continuing her story as we ambled back to the hall, where we would soon be expected for the evening meal. “Of course, I would not go along with this outrageous notion, and I told him so. He was not pleased and threatened not only my position in his house but the future of my child as well, decreeing she would be reared in a Christian convent as soon as arrangements could be made. It was then I determined that my little rose would be transplanted to Avalon when you returned. Anything would be better for her than being raised in this household, such as it is now.”

Octavia’s words tore at my heart as surely as if she had stabbed me. Not only had I lost my mother, but my father, despite his love for me, had become a stranger as well, and I now faced a life in a home that did not recognize the religion I was vowed to serve. As we returned through the yawning castle gates, for the first time, I feared my future life at Northgallis.