ALL that long day in Uther’s death chamber, I learned about a different kind of power. Politics. I watched Leodegran and Da hold off a frightened brenhines, an angry archbishop, and numerous courtiers and warriors with only words. Words that stung, words that begged or promised, and words that manipulated people and their desires. All in aid of politics.
Da dealt with Brenhines Ygraina; Leodegran spoke with the archbishop. Whenever Dyfrig tried to enter the chamber, Da made himself busy on the opposite side of the room. The two never looked at each other, never spoke.
I pushed aside my curiosity to dwell on the tasks at hand.
By the time I had prepared Uther for my minor spells, exhaustion dragged at my eyelids and added lead to my feet. I couldn’t listen anymore to all the words that flew through the partially open doorway.
Servants had willingly brought the things I needed once Leodegran directed them to obey me. After that, I had only to clap my hands or express a wish and my requests appeared almost as if by magic. ’Twas convenient and labor saving, and yet I felt distanced from my work, detached from the person I must heal — and from myself.
In Avalon, we all had to gather, cleanse, and prepare for rituals and spells without help. Now I knew why. If I had drawn the bathwater from a sacred spring, gathered and dried the herbs, and woven the linens, my spells would have permeated every element of the healing. My strength would have been used gradually, a little at each stage. Now I had to spend too much energy in preparing myself and my tools for magic. Would I have enough left for the actual healing?
Political power dissipated my true power. Recognizing that, I knew another moment of truth — two in the same day? My role in life was to work on the fringes, to help people quietly. Any influence I might gain would be subtle, gentle, and, I hoped, longer lasting than the constantly changing politics.
Finally all the extra people left me to my work. Only Da remained. I looked into his anxious face and knew I didn’t have enough strength left to perform the simplest magic.
“Now what, Da? How do I cure a man whose body has been eaten away by disease? There isn’t enough of him left to cure.”
“A cure is impossible, Wren. I stayed away too long. If I had come at the Solstice, perhaps we could have reversed the damage. Now? We can only try to stop the disintegration for a time. Relief from the pain will allow him to eat and gain a little strength. That is all. With luck and the blessings of Dana ’twill be long enough to do what I must do.”
“And what is that, Da?”
A quiet knock on the door stopped his answer. Brenhines Ygraina slipped into the room, a basket over her arm filled with some of the herbs I had requested. She stopped at the doorway. I had expected a servant to deliver the last ingredients.
Da raised one eyebrow in query.
“I wish to help you, young Wren,” Brenhines Ygraina said. Her blue-gray eyes looked at me honestly, devoid of the mask of politics. “Uther has been my husband these nineteen years. I pray that you may give us a little more time together.” She lowered her gaze, keeping it fixed on the floor so that I couldn’t read the grief I knew must fill her. Yet her posture continued to be straight and proud, almost defiant. Determined anyway.
I wished for her poise and beauty. No longer young, she continued to be beautiful and strong in a delicate kind of way. Finely boned features, pale skin and hair, she glowed from within. Her rich gown — without a trace of grass stains — and heavily jeweled cross seemed unnecessary adornments. Like putting jewels upon a rose.
The Morrigan emanated the same kind of regal beauty.
I, with my wild hair and travel-stained clothing, would never command such loveliness. And yet Carradoc had found me attractive....
“Our medicines are not recognized by your Church, lady,” Da warned. “Nor will we offer prayers and readings from your sacred books.”
“That does not matter, as long as you save him. Even for a little while. I am not ready to be alone. I love him too much...” She begged my father with words and eyes and hands folded together.
Her words had meaning and a power I could not deny. The power of love.
“You, Myrddin Emrys, brought Uther to me once before, when God and my first husband worked very hard to keep us apart. In payment you stole our son. You owe us for that grave misdeed. I cannot hope to see my son again. Bring Uther back to me. For a little time. Please.”
“I have no intention of allowing Uther to die just yet, lady.” Da moved beside her, taking both her hands in his. “I have never broken a promise to man or woman. This I promise you, Ygraina: Uther will live long enough to see your son restored to you.”
“Son?” I gasped. No rumor of Ygraina bearing Uther a son had ever reached my diligent eavesdropping. She had a daughter, Morgaine, by her first husband and had borne Uther another daughter, Blasine. Da knew of a third child. A boy. An heir. Who? Where?
The questions piled up until I thought I would burst unless I asked them. And with the questions came a brief understanding. Da didn’t need to search for an heir. He knew where the young man was hidden, free from political corruption and assassination. Free to grow strong and lead men in his own right, not from inherited political power that would evaporate quickly.
I knew of several qualified young men we had met over the years in our wanderings. Any one of Ector’s sons and fosterlings — Curyll or Stinger came to mind before nearsighted Boar and Ceffyl. Another lord in Bernicia and one in Dummonia raised herds of boys with similar qualities.
Which one had Da chosen? Uther and Ygraina would not know the young man. They trusted Da to give them their son.
I trusted Da to present the best qualified, regardless of heritage. He probably had several candidates to make certain at least one of them survived long enough to become eligible.
Leodegran would not be our next Ardh Rhi. Da and Brenhines Ygraina would see to that. But the client king was ambitious and a power to be reckoned with. He would do his best to prevent an untried boy from usurping political power.
“To work, Wren. We have no time to lose.” Da returned to the bed, a half-smile of purpose touching his lips.
“But what do I do? I need a matron and a crone with magic to complete the magic circle. I have never done this before, never witnessed the ritual,” I whispered.
“But I have a different magic at my command. I will work the healing. The truth of who brings Uther back to life will remain a secret among us three.” He nodded to the brenhines and myself.
“Knowledge of you as the miracle worker will give you much power over the court and the other kings,” Ygraina reminded him.
“But will do nothing to protect my daughter. She must be seen as the miracle worker — the heiress to The Morrigan’s power. The men who would seek to use her must believe she has value beyond her parentage and her beauty. Thus they will respect her. ’Tis the only way I can be sure she will be safe in this world of war, change, and religious conflict.”
He said the words as if he knew he would not be there to protect me and had no plans for me to marry.
I clung to the promise of the Goddess in my vision. I will have a husband and children by Curyll — no matter what my Da said or did.
o0o
Da’s preparations for Uther’s cure were simple, and much the same as I had planned myself. We dosed Uther with a potion of herbs brewed in a new cup made of finest pottery. Clay for the cup had come from the living muscle of Dana. Dwfr for the potion was Her lifeblood, and the herbs Her raiment. Tanio to heat and bind the potion was Dana’s gift to Her people. The burned herbs became smoke, representing Awyr. By treating Uther with the living Goddess and all four of Her elements, we sought to bring him back into balance with Her.
I prepared the ointment we rubbed into Uther’s joints with similar symbols and methods. Dana returned to his aching body with soothing warmth.
And finally a vision of the source of the disease.
I sent new fire into the coal from my mind — a more powerful binding source than from flint and iron. Then I set onto the brazier a copper gräal — the symbol of the cauldron of life the Goddess stirred and nurtured — filled with freshly drawn water from a hillside spring. A secret combination of pungent herbs smoldered in the coals. Smoke drifted into every corner, filling the room with the fragrance of wood and field. Faeries could nourish themselves on that smoke.
Da knelt before the gräal, stirring the contents, murmuring prayers and spells much as the Goddess maintained Her gräal. I should have done this, but without a matron and a crone my magic would be unbalanced. How did he fill the gaps? He bowed his head in meditation to prepare himself for the vision. A simple viewing of friends within the flames of a campfire did not require such careful preparation. He must look deeper into the mysteries of the gods to root out the demon that dwelled within Uther.
I inhaled deeply of the fragrant smoke. My sense of up and down wavered. Colors shifted and burst from every object in the room.
Da placed three drops of Uther’s blood into the gräal.
The water in the bowl called to me. But this was to be Da’s vision. I closed my eyes lest I see and misinterpret what he needed to know.
Beside me, I heard Da breathing deeply of the smoke and mist from the gräal. At last I opened my eyes to find layers of shadows surrounding him. Not an aura of energy from within, a cloak imposed upon him by the gods. I looked to Ygraina who stood beside the bed. Many-colored layers of light surrounded her. If I looked deep enough into those colored layers, I would know every secret she possessed. Da guarded his secrets too closely with a cloaking aura for me to hope to penetrate it.
I dared not probe Ygraina. She was, after all, my brenhines. Instead I looked to Da and jerked away from him, gasping in fear and surprise. Blackness outlined every shadow layer that surrounded him. The blackness of undeath.
Without wanting to, I looked into the water in the gräal for understanding, drawn there by the compulsion in the smoke and the spell I had prepared for my father. I expected to see visions of Da’s past, my mother, the secret sadness he carried after leaving his college of Druids.
The steam rising from the gräal parted before my eyes. Within the still water I saw the sigil for poison glowing with menace upon the limp body of Uther.
No demon ate at his vital organs. Poison! Poison, given to him daily, with his wine, for many months.
A vile crime against Britain and the Goddess. Whoever poisoned the Ardh Rhi poisoned the land.
Such a crime opened the door to the Saxons, civil war, famine, and plague. Whatever earthly power, wealth, and prestige Uther held would waste away and become meaningless.
Christians didn’t believe in the covenant with the Goddess. Neither did they believe in murder.
No one who held to the old ways would dare kill the Ardh Rhi, except in single combat after ritual challenge.
Who, then? Who would dare?
I looked deeper into the vision to seek the murderer. A name, I pleaded. Give me a name or a face. The few remaining Druids would mete out justice.
The sigil grew larger, blinked and brightened to blinding intensity. Before my eyes the symbol shifted and changed into a rare plant, druidsbane, creamy white petals cupped around hairy, blood-red centers. Only those initiated into the priesthood of Cernunnos knew the closely guarded secret properties and antidote of this shy forest dweller.
Poison so deadly, the priest had to contain it within a Druid’s foot — a pentagram drawn into the Pridd with his athame. Without the powerful sigil cut into the earth with a pristine ritual dagger, the plant would spread its poison into the air for the priest and his attendants to breathe and die.
I had discovered the druidsbane and its cure by accident on one of my solitary forays into the forests surrounding Avalon’s marshy lake. My ability to blend into the shadows and observe had saved my life. A priest of the horned god of the Underworld and two of his apprentices gathered the lovely little wildflower with death hidden in its sap and pollen. I watched and listened, learning all I could. I kept to my hiding place long after they moved to another part of the forest. Had they discovered me, the athame that drew the circle of protection would have become the instrument of my death. Only those within the cult of Cernunnos could know the secret poisons and live.
Now I could use that forbidden knowledge to arrest the wasting of Uther’s body. But no potion or magic could restore the damage already done.
Clearly Dana had given me the task to help Uther. Justice would have to wait. I didn’t know where to look for the culprit.
Please, Dana, don’t make us wait too long for justice, I silently prayed. Don’t make us wait too long to bring the guilty one before you. Our covenant with you must be restored before the Saxons kill us all.
o0o
Da stood up, a hand to his head, strange words pushing through his clenched lips. A hint of the mad laughter that preceded prophecy hovered on the edge of the language he uttered. He stumbled slightly as he turned toward the bed. I reached a hand to keep him from falling, but he shook off my touch.
His fumbling footsteps took him in circles and loops toward the window. At last he leaned out and breathed deeply of the clean air.
A breeze cleared the room of the vision smoke and relieved my headache. Da continued to cover his eyes with one hand while pressing his temple with the rigid fingers of the other.
Ygraina stood by the door, her mouth and eyes wide with bewilderment.
“Do you know the antidote, Da?” I whispered.
He whirled to face me, hands braced behind him against the windowsill. The signs of pain on his face faded, replaced by lines of worry and alarm.
“You saw the vision, too?” His words mounted in volume.
I cringed and stepped back. “Yes, Da. I saw the sigil and the nature of the poison.”
“If you know the plant, then I presume you know the antidote as well.” Anger simmered just below the surface of his eyes, not yet radiating into his muscles. He fingered his torc with his left hand. His right hand clenched into the ward against Cernunnos, little finger and index finger extended, pointing at me.
I hung my head. I could not lie and yet if I admitted to the secret knowledge, would he feel obligated to kill me?
“We will discuss this later, Arylwren. When Uther is safe and I am calm.” He turned to look out the window again, his back a broad barrier between us. “Proceed with the antidote. Time is short, but do not hurry the preparation lest you make a mistake and kill him with the cure.”