I’d been here several weeks previously when Coel (careful never to touch me, nor to push me) had taken me on a tour of the Veiled Hills. The hills made me feel much as I had at the first sight of Llangarlia: breathless, excited, overwhelmed, and strangely loved. This land, and these sacred hills particularly, made me feel as I imagined it would feel to be held safe and warm in a mother’s arms.
The spring with its delightful charm had made me laugh—and Coel had then laughed to see my joy—and now I was happy to be coming back. To beg of its waters, and of this Mag, a daughter that I would love and who would love me and who would bind Brutus to me forever and ever and ever.
When we arrived at the great gnarled oak that guarded the approaches to the Llandin, I was annoyed to find Loth waiting for us. I shot him a dark look. No matter what he pleaded, I would not aid him, nor Erith either, if it meant antagonizing Brutus.
‘Cornelia,” said Erith’s gentle voice as we stopped at the edge of the streaming pool of water under the rocks from where the spring bubbled. “You will need to disrobe.”
I dropped my cloak and slid the robe over my shoulders. “What now?” I said, shivering in the cold air.
‘When you enter the pool,” Loth said, “you will experience a vision. This will be your vision alone.
Neither Erith nor myself will see what you do. Whatever happens, Cornelia, you must endure by yourself.
Are you prepared for that?”
‘Yes. Please, what do I do?”
‘I have told you of the Mag that Llangarlian women feel in their wombs,” Erith said to me.
‘Yes, Siangan told me of it.”
‘If you want Mag’s aid,” Erith said, “then you will need to feel the Mag within your womb. Do you feel Mag within your womb, Cornelia of Mesopo-tama?”
My eyes had strayed to Loth, and now I jerked them back to her, and I flushed a little. “Yes,” I said, spreading my hands over my belly. “Yes, I feel her.”
And indeed, I think that I did. There was a tingling deep within me, a warmth. It was nothing like the growing heat of sexual passion, but as if my womb contained a roughened ball slowly turning within its confines, rubbing against its walls.
A hand, perhaps, slowly turning deep within me.
I shuddered. “Yes, I feel her.”
As I was speaking Erith had crooked an eyebrow at Loth, but all she said to me was to ask me to walk to the pool and step in until the waters reached my waist.
I did as she said, sliding my feet one by one carefully into the water in case the footing was slippery, my hands now at my side, outstretched for balance.
I shivered in delight at the warmth of the water, and as the footing proved soft but not uncertain, I moved easily into the center of the pool, then turned and looked back at Erith and Loth, now both standing at the edge of the waters.
‘Close your eyes,” said Loth, his voice very soft.
I did as he asked.
‘Can you feel your womb?” said Erith.
I nodded.
‘Can you imagine it, squirming with child?” said Loth.
I smiled, and nodded. My belly felt suddenly full, distended, my womb stretched with the child it carried.
A girl, I could almost see her curled up within me, dreaming of the day when she would be born and free. Plump and healthy, with tight black curls plastered to her scalp by the waters that cushioned her and strong healthy limbs that she moved languidly about within my womb, pushing against its confines.
‘Yes,” I whispered. “She is lovely… my daughter.”
‘What would you like her to be?” said Erith. “What kind of woman do you want your daughter to grow to?”
I felt as if I would melt with happiness. “She will be strong and beautiful, and lucky in every way. She will choose her own path in life, spending all her days in love and laughter.” My hands were again wrapped about my belly, but where it had been only gently rounded when I had stepped into the waters, now it was huge, distended, roiling with the life it contained.
Loth said something, I could not catch the words, and then Erith repeated his words.
‘Open your eyes, Cornelia,” Loth said, “but say and do nothing, whatever strangeness your eyes encounter.”
I did as he asked, then only barely managed to restrain my gasp, and to hold myself still in the waters.
A small woman stood in the water before me. Dark and fey, with very bright eyes, she was the woman I’d seen with Hera in the stone hall.
‘Mag?” I whispered.
She lifted a hand from the water and placed it over one of mine on my belly.
‘I can give you all you want in your daughter,” she said, “although it will do you no good now. It will be many years, Cornelia, before you hold your daughter in your arms. Many years and many tears…”
Her voice drifted off, and then the pressure of her hand on mine increased, and suddenly I saw a vision of such horror that I gasped.
Fire, so consuming that everything before it crumbled to ash.
Invaders, clay-daubed like those that attacked Brutus and his men that night Achates was born, only infinitely more frightening, more murderous.
Fire and invaders, together, dropping from the sky, and a presence so evil behind them that I cried out, and tried to twist away from the woman’s hand.
‘Cornelia, Cornelia,” she said, and I saw that she was crying, as if this vision terrified her as much as it did me. “Only you, Cornelia. Only you , Cornelia.”
‘No!”
‘Tread down the steps, Cornelia, through fire and death, into the darkness, into the heart, around and about, mouth to mouth, soul to soul, ‘mid deafening bells, through sirens’ call,’twixt thunderous roar and shattering wall. Face the evil, turn it about, dance with your lover, and seal the gate !”
There was a silence, reverberating with her frightful words.
‘And then, Cornelia,” she whispered, and her other hand was at my cheek, wiping away the tears,
“then you will have your daughter.”
‘No!” I cried. “I want my daughter now! Now!”
‘And surely you shall have her now, but never in your arms, never in your arms…”
Then she seemed to relent, for she smiled, and said, “Bathe your breasts in these waters, and you shall have the daughter you desire.”
And she was gone, and I stood in that pool, scooping water over my breasts, putting everything she had said to me out of my mind, save that I would have my daughter… I would have my daughter…
I calmed, breathing deeply, thinking only of the girl I would conceive tonight, and then…
,’ SAW GENVISSA, STANDING OUTSIDE HER HOUSE, STAR-
ing wildly at Brutus, who rode away into the night.
“Come back!” she cried, holding out her rounded white arms in appeal. “Come back… do not go to her, not tonight! Not tonight!”
But she was too late, Brutus had already gone.
Genvissa turned, and saw me somehow, and her face twisted into a mask of spite.
“Your belly is meaningless, girl,” she said. “It is mine that shall count, mine that shall birth the most beautiful girl the world will ever see. Mine, my daughter. Not yours, Mag.”
I GASPED, AND FOUND MYSELF SINKING AS IF A GREAT weight had grabbed my legs. I screamed, flailing in the water, then there was a great splash, and Loth was beside me, holding me up, and guiding me to the edge of the pool.
‘What happened?” I heard Erith say, and then I knew no more for I fainted.
CbAPGGR GUDGNGy *”f SSHE BREATHING?” ERITH SAID, TRYING TO ROLL
Cornelia over onto her back.
‘Yes,” Loth said. Then he looked up at Erith. “Gods, Erith, what happened ?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know—neither of us shared her vision. Quick, grab her clothes… she’s wet through, and in this cold…”
Loth grabbed at Cornelia’s robe, somehow managing to slip it over her head and arms and drag it down her wet body.
‘Did it work?” Erith said.
Loth, in the process of pulling Cornelia’s robe down over her hips, stopped and slid his hand over her belly.
‘Yes,” he said. “If she lies with Brutus tonight she will conceive of this daughter she wants so badly.”
FAR DISTANT, IN HER HOUSE NORTH OF THE VEILED hills, Genvissa leaned in the open door and watched Brutus ride into the night.
Back to Llanbank.
Back to Cornelia.
Back to plant within her a daughter.
As MagaLlan Genvissa had a powerful connection with Mag’s Pond, and she’d understood where Mag had got to the instant Cornelia sank beneath the pond’s waters. Mag had hidden within Cornelia !