There was a long silence. Then Aelia cleared her throat.
“This is my home, and I want no other, but why must it be so hard? If those folk out there know nothing of Avalon, what is it that we are doing for them, and why?”
“The princely families know,” I ventured to reply. “When the crops in their lands are failing, they send for one of us to perform the Great Rite—that is how I came to be born. And they send their daughters to us for training in the old ways of our people.”
“But the Romans have temples, and tax the people to support them. Let them win favour from the gods with their offerings. Why must we give up so much, when we receive so little in return?”
The High Priestess was watching with a sour smile, but she did not seem angry, so I dared to answer once more.
“Because the Romans have forgotten what the rituals mean, if indeed they ever knew! My father used to say that they think that if every word and action of a ceremony is performed correctly, the deity must do their bidding, and that no amount of sincere belief will matter if one syllable is wrong.”
My tutor Corinthius, that kind and gentle man, had believed that rituals were only a means of holding society together, and the gods were some kind of philosophic ideal.
“The people of my village knew better than that!” exclaimed Heron. “Our festivals put us in harmony with the cycles and seasons of the world.”
“And the rituals of Avalon can change them,” Ganeda put in at last. “We are halfway to the Otherworld already, and what we do here resonates on all the planes of existence. There have been times when we worked more openly within the world, and times when we have stayed behind our mists, invisible, but we work with the energies of the cosmos, according to the teachings that have come down to us from the land of Atlantis that lies now beneath the waves. It is real power, that would destroy the mind and body of any who tried to channel it unprepared or untrained…”
Aelia’s eyes dropped before the fervour in her gaze, and then Heron and Aelia looked away. Her gaze moved to me, and I realized I was looking not at my aunt, who hated me, but at the Lady of Avalon. I bowed my head in homage.
“And that is why we offer ourselves to the Goddess, to do Her work within the world, not in pride, but because She has called us in a voice that compels an answer,” she said softly. “Our lives are the sacrifice.”
After that day, the tension between Ganeda and myself seemed to ease a little, or perhaps it was only that I was beginning to understand her now. Indeed, each day seemed to bring new understanding, as we refined skills we thought we had mastered before.
The vision was fading. Reluctantly I released the image of the Tor, ablaze with light, and willed myself to retrace my steps around and around and back again to the garden. The Voice of my Guide continued in its steady direction, keeping me from straying until the brilliant memory of my inner journey became the familiar scene I saw every day.
I opened my eyes, blinking at the sunlight, and set my hands upon the earth to root myself once more in her power. The hawthorn hedge and the carefully-tended herbs were still beautiful, even though they had lost the glowing edges I saw in the Otherworld. Roud and Heron were beside me. I took a deep breath of the scented air and blessed the Goddess for bringing me safely back again.
“Does the Sight come only to those who have been trained in the old ways, as you are training us here?” asked Roud.
The High Priestess shook her head. Since the death of her daughter, age had come fully upon her, and the morning light that filtered between the leaves of the apple tree showed each line and furrow in her face with merciless clarity. If Ganeda had not made it so obvious that she was teaching me with the others only because it was her duty, I could almost have pitied her.