Elizabeth Mayne - Lady Of The Lake

“Oh! Venn will like that, he will.” Mother Wren cackled, pretending to agree, when she knew better. Venn would spit in the Viking’s eye. “Now be off with you. My lady’s near to fainting as she stands.”

Wren hurried Tala inside the cottage, slamming shut the half door. They both hugged each other for support, lest they collapse as they listened for the Vikings to ride away.

“My lady—” old Wren exhaled deeply, her hand pressing hard upon her heart “—this night my hair went from gray to white in the span of a moonrise. Do this to me again and I’ll be laid out from stone to stone.”

“Wren, you are a more splendid mummer than the stagmen of Arden Wood.” Tala hugged the old woman tightly and kissed her wrinkled cheek in deepest gratitude. “Thank you, thank you. I feared you would give the game away when he demanded to know Venn’s whereabouts.”

Wren cackled and patted her arm. “It takes little guile to fool a Dane, child.”

It wasn’t long before Tala paced the cottage in high dudgeon, raising small clouds of dust on the hard-packed earth floor with her feet. She’d exchanged her royal mantle and sadly mangled gown for her hunting dress and had put her gold armbands and diadem in the casket where they remained safe between uses.

“Have you heard a single word I’ve said, Mother Wren?”

“Yes, yes, I heard every word.” the old woman sat on her stool, yanking at her distaff. She jabbed a favorite bone on the bottom and gave it a twirl, making the stick spin. Bent fingers fed the spinning wood a hank of wool, and a thread formed in the blink of Tala’s eye. “All of Leam is to become Christians and you’re to marry a Viking. I heard you say it all only moments ago. What of it? Being a Christian isn’t so bad.”

“What of it?” Tala’s hands tightened to fists. “These Vikings murdered my parents!”

“Nay, Tala. That isn’t true. Jarl Edon and his Vikings had nothing to do with your parents’ death and you know that. Just as you know you must yield to the kings’ will. Tegwin has no power. Half the old stories are jumbled in his head. Why can you not listen to those who are wiser than you? We all see the end of it.”

“Wren, not you, too?” Tala said sorrowfully. “Venn is trying to hold on to his birthright. He has the right to believe in the old gods of Leam, gods that made our land what it was. It isn’t just a tradition to him to make gold offerings to the Lady of the Lake, it’s a ritual. He believes the gods will speak to him. That their spirits show themselves in his vision dreams.”

“Venn is a boy. He knows what he is taught. Send him to an abbey and he will learn of the Christ. Foster him out as your father would have done. Let Venn learn the new ways. He will adapt. You know, Saint Ninian converted all of Wessex. Why does Leam resist? The days of the druids are over.”

“You don’t understand, Wren. Venn refuses to abandon the last living druid. I have tried to convince him to return to Chester or go study in any abbey. He will not. Not unless I allow Tegwin to go with him.”

“Then you must do something drastic.”

“Such as?”

“Marry the Viking,” Wren cackled. “Had I a man such as that plowing my belly, I’d have never gone to the convent at Lyotcoyt. I saw him ride into Warwick on that black horse of his. Ooch, I’d nay let a man such as that get away…a black Dane. His mother was Irish. He’ll give you sons aplenty.”

Tala rolled her eyes and asked the gods for patience. Wren was so old she was addled. “You are not helping. I’d kill the Viking’s sons to repay them for killing my father.”

“You speak where you know not. King Alfred gave you leave to take your sisters to summer in Chester and you come to Warwick to stir up trouble in the grove. Take the Viking. It will go better for you.”

“And then what? Do I turn my back on my brother? You know what will happen if I do. If I leave Venn here alone this summer, Tegwin will convince him to be the sacrifice on the night of Lughnasa.”

The distaff wobbled to a stop in Mother Wren’s gnarled hands. She stared balefully at the small peat fire in her hearth, which gave so little light to her rude cottage. “Truly, Tala ap Griffin, I am no help to you. Venn is of royal blood, chosen for his fate by that blood. We cannot change it. Not you or I. He will be happy in the Other World.”

Tala dropped to her knees before the old woman and gripped her gnarled fingers between her hands. “Mother Wren, I love my brother. I have cared for him since he was a very little boy. I cannot let him go to the otherworld, not even if by doing that his sacrifice will save this world of mine. My life will be empty without him…as it would be without Lacey and Audrey and Gwynnth. They are all the blood I have left. They are my life, my heart, my soul.”

“There, there,” Mother Wren said, pulling her hands free so she could console her. “Marrying the Viking need not end your world. The Dane is strong hearted. ‘Haps he can protect what you cannot.”

“Don’t tell me to do foolish things, like accepting a black Viking for a husband. Help me find a way to stem the flow of change. If the Vikings could be turned back to the Avon, then Venn could take his rightful place in this domain. Venn is Leam’s last true son. Think you of what it would mean if he lived a full measure of years and had sons of his own.”

“Aye.” Old Mother Wren nodded. “He is the last of our kings. No more and no less deserving of a long full life than the first king to pick up a club and make all obey him. I do not know what to tell you, child. You must seek your answers from souls wiser than I.”

“Aye,” Tala said. But who? she asked herself on the long walk home through the forest in the dark of night.

The old gods did not appear to Tala. Years had passed since the old temple in the clearing had appeared to her as the legendary Citadel of Glass. She saw it now as only a vitrified stone hall, emptied of its former greatness and mysticism by the changing times.

It was not yet dawn when Tala reached the lake. She walked far out onto the stone causeway until she stood with water completely surrounding her. The sky was clear, full of its fading stars. A blue, waxing moon hung low in the western sky, its pale orb reflected a thousand times in the tiny waves on the still, dark lake.

The water moved as it always did, with strange currents skating from bank to bank. Swells rose midlake and ran off to flood the fens. Whirlpools churned, then abruptly ceased, and the black water went as flat as a griddle. There were none alive who could divine the portends of the lake. In ages past, the princesses of Leam could interpret each omen they witnessed. But Tala couldn’t.

The only power that had come down to her generation was the ability to find water in dry earth. The chain of knowledge had been broken with the coming of the monks.

But it was an unheard-of catastrophe for no rain to fall between Beltane and Lughnasa. The three most fertile months of the growing season had so far passed without a drop of rain to replenish the rivers and streams.

And that tragedy had opened the ancestral mind of the people of Leam. They remembered the old rituals and sacrifices that had saved their land long years ago.

Like Tala, Venn and Mother Wren, every remaining soul born of Leam knew that if no rain fell between today and August 1, the only thing that would save them was the blood sacrifice of the atheling of Leam. The feast of the first fruits—Lughnasa—was Leam’s last chance to redeem the gods’ favor.

If they ignored the dire predictions of the past, in less than a generation they would all be dead.

In the fat years recently past, the ritual had dwindled to sacrificing the first grains and fruits gleaned from the fields, as a symbolic offering to guarantee the harvest. In years of dire tribulation such as this, only the sacrifice of the first blood—the son of the king or the king himself— could appease the angry gods.

Venn was the atheling of Leam. Only he could end the drought. Only his blood and body offered in sacrifice could guarantee Leam’s survival past this year. That fact may as well be written in stone. Everyone knew it as truth. Venn’s only salvation was rain. Plentiful rain falling in the days left in July was the only means to avert Venn’s early and untimely death.

Tala had no more faith in the old ways than she had trust in the new. She didn’t believe her only brother’s death would bring on the rain. She didn’t believe the old druid Tegwin had the power to work such magic. In her heart she believed that Venn’s sacrifice would change nothing. He would give his life and the drought would continue, unabated by divine intervention.

Tala knew even less about the new god, this Christ that her guardian, King Alfred, revered. But she knew he must be powerful if King Guthrum was willing to put his people to death if they did not accept the talisman of the cross.

If only there was someone wise and knowing she could talk to who could explain all of this to her. But she had no one. She had only this ancient lake of her ancestors, the silent spirits hidden in its depths and the confusion of her thoughts.

She prayed hard, pouring out her troubles to the Lady of the Lake. Tala sought insight and clarity, hope and solace. To make certain her desperate petition was heard, she removed her gold torque from her throat. Prayers without a sacrificial offering were an abomination to the gods.

“Lady, I beseech you. Give me a sign. Show me what I must do to save my brother’s life. He is just a boy, a puny man-child of no value to you. Venn cannot bring the rain, make the seeds sprout in your earth or hold the mighty Vikings behind your river Avon. His thin body will not feed your fish for more than a day. So why must he be taken from me? I need him. I love him. Take this torque and forget my little brother. You’ll be much happier with the gold.”

Tala extended her torque over the water. She held her breath, waiting for the Lady of the Lake to rise up from the water and accept her offering.

The dark water at her feet moved, then churned as if gathering power. A shadowy form broke the surface at Tala’s feet, throwing silvery drops onto her bare legs and breaking up the reflection of her golden torque. Her eyes followed the dark wake that bisected the still waters and her heart hammered in her throat. This was what she sought—a sign.

The fluid tension of the surface erupted in a blinding, foamy arc of silvery water beads. Tala threw her golden torque at the breaking wave. The ring of gold spun far, far out over the black water.

A pale limb shot up from a bank of waterweeds. It snatched the gold torque in midair and splashed below the surface.

Ripples washed quickly back to the pier where Tala stood. The lake undulated softly, then stilled once more. And Tala ap Griffin burst into tears.

The precious golden torque that had declared her a princess to all of her people—that she was willing to sacrifice for the life of her brother—had been snapped out of the air not by the Lady of the Lake, but by a fish.

The granary was first on Edon’s scheduled tour with Embla Silver Throat the next morning. He found the dusty building well stocked and dry. All provisions stored in barrels and well-constructed crates were in good shape. Ample seed was put aside for next year’s planting. Edon was a stickler for such details and always insisted upon holding back more than necessary.

Best of all, the granary was clean and rat free. Varmints were kept at bay by having numerous good mousers where they were most needed.