In counterpoint to her Llangarlian clothes, Cornelia wore her dark hair in full Greek fashion, twisted and arranged to fall in carefully controlled cascades from the crown of her head. It became her, Hicetaon thought, and wryly observed that many others thought so as well, judging by the number of admiring glances sent her way.
They walked toward the riverbank, the crowds drawing ever closer, and Hicetaon had to fight to make room for them. Cornelia was becoming agitated, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright, and just as Hicetaon had begun to wonder if it might not be safer after all to escort her back to the safety of their house, a voice spoke, and warm hands took hold of both Hicetaon’s and Cornelia’s elbows.
‘I have just the place for us to view,” Coel said, and Hicetaon frowned at the sudden smile on Cornelia’s face.
‘I don’t think—” Hicetaon said, and then stopped, realizing that the pressure on his elbow was gone.
Cornelia and Coel had vanished… they had simply melted back into the crowds pressed about him.
Hicetaon bellowed Cornelia’s name, furious both with her and with Coel, straining on the tips of his toes to see above the heads surrounding him.
But to no avail. They were gone, and Hicetaon was left to be carried along with the flow of the crowds toward the Llan.
Brutus will be furious, Hicetaon thought, and then wondered if he had the nerve to tell him.
‘MY SISTER’S ROBE LOOKS WELL ON YOU,” COEL SAID, holding Cornelia close before him. They were standing on a small raised knoll on the northern bank of the river partway between the White Mount and Mag’s Hill.
Cornelia smiled, apparently not uncomfortable with his closeness. He had swept her through the crowd with effortless ease, conveying her to the small ferry on the Llan’s southern bank, and persuading the ferryman with charm and a curiously carved seashell to convey them to the northern bank.
Here, on the northern bank, the crowds were far less as the people about generally consisted only of those taking part in the ceremonies. Coel had led Cornelia to a spot where they would not only be able to have a good view of the rituals about to be enacted, but at the same time not be in anyone’s way.
‘Thank Tuenna again for me,” said Cornelia. “I cannot believe she would gift me such a treasure.”
‘She liked you,” Coel said, very slightly increasing the pressure of his arms where they wound about her body below her breasts. “My entire family liked you.”
Cornelia colored very faintly. “You say too many kind things about me,” she said. “Others might not be so generous.”
Coel resisted the urge to grind his teeth at her reference to Brutus, but let it pass. “You deserve all my kind words, and more,” he said. “I am your friend, and your guide through tonight’s mysteries,” he said, his voice filled with laughter. “I adore you.” His arms tightened again, but in a manner that was somehow mischievous and teasing, and not in any manner demanding.
She laughed, and relaxed against him, pleasing Coel. Perhaps one day, perhaps soon, she might overcome her inhibitions and accept him as her lover. He knew she desired him, but he feared that Cornelia was too trapped by Brutus, and by fear, guilt, and love to ever take that step away from her husband.
Coel repressed a sigh. Whatever happened, if ever Cornelia consented to lie with him, it wouldn’t be tonight. Loth had asked him to bring Cornelia to the Stone Dance atop Pen once the main rituals were done. Please Og, Coel prayed silently, closing his eyes for a moment, let Loth discover the “why” of Cornelia. Let him discover bow to use her to restore balance and health and Llangarlia’s true gods to this land.
He shuddered, and she felt it, half turning against him until he could see the curve of her cheek in the starlight.
‘The cold,” he said. “There will be a heavy frost at dawn, I think.” He lifted his hands and pushed her cloak over her shoulders, wrapping her the more tightly in its warmth.
‘We should be well abed by then,” she said, and he grunted, able to make no other reply to her.
Then he felt her start, her head moving back to the river again. “What is happening?” she said, and Coel heard the strain in her voice,
On the banks of the Llan below them, several hundred women had gathered. They were cloaked, but as Cornelia and Coel watched, they allowed the cloaks to drop to the ground, leaving the women naked.
‘They are Mothers,” Coel said quietly against Cornelia’s hair. “Not all of them, but a representative grouping of them. They are here to offer sacrifice to Og and Mag.” In desperation, thought Coel, for they know very well that Og is dead and Mag too weak to respond.
Perhaps this was just a formality, done for the comfort it gave rather than in any expectation of actual aid.
‘Sacrifice?” Cornelia said.
He smiled, and she felt the movement in her hair. “Metal, Cornelia. Not blood. The most precious metal objects we have. Given to the river as thanks and offering.”
‘Why the river… and why such a waste of such precious objects? Hera! Each of those bronze axes might well feed a small community throughout an entire winter!”
One of his hands lifted away from her, extending toward the wide river. “See the stillness of the waters? The gleam of its surface? Is that not the most mysterious thing you have ever seen? Water is the gateway between this world and the Far World, the mirror that reflects both worlds, and what we offer to the river is taken in thanks by the gods on the other side… in the other world. Any why such precious objects? Because they are such precious things to us. See… the Mothers take up their offerings.”
‘They’re breaking them!”
Indeed, each of the women, no matter what she held, was now ritually breaking the objects—bending, twisting, mutilating, and shattering, if able.
‘They do that to show the gods to what lengths they will go to honor them. These objects are precious, and it is in honor of the gods that we break them before offering them.”
The beat of a drum began, and then the thin, almost-frightening wail of a pipe.
‘There,” Coel said, and pointed toward Mag’s Hill.
Figures stood on its summit, and Cornelia and Coel were close enough to see.
Genvissa—there could be no mistaking her statuesque figure nor her wild dark hair. Brutus was with her, wearing nothing but a white loin wrap and the gleaming bands of kingship about his arms and legs.
His hair, too, was left free for the wind to tug and caress. Three women—no, girls—stood behind Genvissa and Brutus, and as Cornelia watched, Brutus turned and laughed with them about something, touching the cheek of the eldest girl who was, Cornelia saw, about her own age.
Coel felt Cornelia tense at that simple display of affection. Poor Cornelia, what she would not do to have Brutus touch her cheek just once with that tenderness.
Coel felt a tightening in his gut, and he knew it was jealousy.
‘They are Genvissa’s daughters,” he said softly. “Fathered on her by the Gormagog during rituals such as these.”
Cornelia said nothing, staring at the tableau above her.
‘Why do you love him so deeply when he treats you so badly?” Coel said, truly wanting to know.
“How can you want to please him so much?”
‘He is everything to me,” she said, and Coel’s arms tightened about her in agony.
‘Everything awaits you, Cornelia, and it is not in that man.”
Above them, Brutus turned to Genvissa, and kissed her; far below in Coel’s arms, Cornelia gave a low moan of distress.
‘If you were one of us,” Coel said, his eyes fixed on Brutus and Genvissa, “you would discard any man who so maltreated you. How could you want such a man as the father of your children?”
‘You don’t understand,” Cornelia said. “I have been so foolish, done so many wicked things, hurt so
many people.”
‘You? What?”
‘My father…” Cornelia began, then shuddered and said no more.
Below them, the Mothers had walked far into the waters of the Llan so that the waves of the great river lapped at their breasts.
As one, and to the accompaniment of a surging of the pipes and drums and the ululations of the watchers on the far riverbank, the Mothers threw their offerings of precious metal far into the river.
‘I know some of the circumstances in which Brutus took you to be his wife,” Coel said, his voice low and hard. “By Og and Mag, Cornelia, in our land he would have been slaughtered for what he did to you!”
Gigantic bone-fires now roared into life on the summits of all the sacred hills and mounds, and as they did so, black figures began to twist and turn about them in wild dance.
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