For a timeless moment I floated in the water. Then soft hands were drawing me upwards, and I emerged into the full light of day.
“Now arise, Eilan, clean and shining, revealed in all your beauty. Arise and take your place among us, Maiden of Avalon!”
* * *
CHAPTER THREE
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AD 265
It was the end of summer and I was trimming the hazel hedge when something stung my calf. I jumped and turned, striking out instinctively with the branch I had just cut.
“Ah ha!” Dierna danced backwards, waving the twigs she had snatched from the pile on the path. “Got you!”
At eight, Dierna’s red head blazed like a torch. Two-year-old Becca toddled behind her. I reached out to steady the little one as Dierna dashed away once more, then ran after her, swishing my own branch menacingly, though I suppose I rather spoiled the effect by laughing.
“Are you watching Becca today?” I asked when all three of us had collapsed, breathless, on the grass.
“I suppose so,” answered the little girl. “She follows me everywhere—”
I nodded. I had heard the older priestesses talking, and knew that Sian still tired easily. It was inevitable that Dierna should end up with much of the responsibility for her little sister.
Sian did not seem to be in pain, but her strength waned with each month, and even when the moon grew full once more, it did not return. Ganeda said nothing, but there were new lines in her face. I found myself pitying the older woman, but I knew I was the last person from whom my aunt would accept sympathy.
Long before I felt ready to get up again, Dierna was bouncing to her feet to run after Becca, whose sturdy legs were already carrying her down the path.
“There are ducklings in the reed-beds!” exclaimed Dierna. “Come with us and see!”
“I wish I could,” I told her, “but I have promised to finish this hedge before dinner.”
“You have to work all the time!” complained Dierna. She turned, saw Becca disappearing around a corner, and dashed after her.
For a moment I stood watching as the red head caught up with the brown and the two continued down the path towards the Lake, sparkling in the afternoon sun. Then I sighed and turned back to my work once more.
When I was a little child, I had envied my older half-brothers their training as warriors. In those days, to whack away with a broken branch at some laughing guardsman had been my favourite game. They had told me tales of Boudicca, whose armies once made the Romans fear, and called me their warrior princess. But my brothers had smiled with male superiority and assured me that the disciplines they were undergoing were far too difficult for a mere girl.
Sometimes, when I remembered those days, I would wonder whether my brothers could have endured the education I was receiving now. In the three years since the ceremony that welcomed me to womanhood the training of a priestess had ruled my days. True, I still shared some work and classes with the younger girls and the maidens who had been sent to Avalon to learn something of the old ways before going home to be married. But now I also had other training, and additional duties.
The girls who were meant to be priestesses sat with the youths being trained by the Druids to memorize endless lists of names and master the elaborate symbols and correspondences by which meaning could be enriched, or disguised. We ran races around the holy isle, for it was held that a vigorous body was necessary to support a strong mind. We were trained in correct use of the voice, and practised as a choir for the ceremonies. And with the initiated priestesses, we maidens took our turns to tend the flame on the altar that was the hearth of Avalon.
To keep watch in the temple and feed the little fire was not physically demanding. But although meditation was encouraged during the vigil, sleep was forbidden. I loved to sit alone in the round thatched hut on the Maidens’ Isle, watching the leaping flame, but now, in the lazy warmth of afternoon, my need for sleep was beginning to catch up with me. I found myself swaying, and stared stupidly at the hazel twig in my hand.