“He has already tried—” said Mikantor dryly. “But that is between him and me. I was born to the Ai-Zir. By blood, you are my kinswoman and my queen. But I was not raised in Azan, I was not fed by its earth, I do not know its ways. I will lead your warriors, but I am not the right man to be your king.”
That, at least, had pierced Cimara’s despair. The beads of her headdress clicked as she shook her head. “But what do you want, then?”
“To be your protector, lady.”
Tirilan reached out to take his hand. They had spoken of this through the hours of darkness when they lay twined together after making love, seeking to find a way through the demands and dangers that surrounded them. “They tell me that I was born to be a king, but it is not king of Azan that I would be. Something more . . . or less . . .” He shrugged. “The shape of it is still unclear. But the calling I feel is to serve all in this Isle.”
“We come to you first because you are his rightful queen,” added Tirilan.
“Do you wish my blessing?” Cimara looked bemused. “It is more likely to prove a curse instead.”
“And yet that is what I ask.”
“Then it is yours, and though it is little enough support that the wretch allows me, I can at least offer you a beaker of beer. . . .”
ANDERLE SETTLED INTO HER place between the men’s and women’s sides of the council fire. She surveyed the array of faces dappled by sunlight where there were holes in the canopy of oiled wool, queens and clanmothers facing war chieftains and kings. A ring of lesser folk surrounded them. In all the years it had been her privilege, and sometimes her penance, to mediate the negotiations of the tribes at the Midsummer Festival, never, she thought with a flutter of apprehension, had she faced them with such hope and such fear.
As always, they began with the awarding of prizes for the warrior games, an event that was ostensibly neutral, although one could tell a great deal from the tribal affiliations of the winners and the strength of the cheers. A fair number of those prizes, she was pleased to note, had been won by Mikantor’s men. They were identified by the tribes from which they had come, but the buzz as one after another returned to stand with him was encouraging. At least the tribes could see that he knew how to train warriors.
Mikantor himself was called forth to receive the prize for swordplay. There was a gratifying clamor of approval as men beat upon their thighs and women ullulated behind their hands. And when he has the Sword from the Stars, they will know he can use it. . . . The gods had ordained that Mikantor should have that sword. But even the gods, came the traitorous thought, cannot always compensate for the weakness of men. . . .
The women continued to cheer as Mikantor bent to receive his crown of oak leaves from Queen Cimara. The gathering buzzed with comment. Was the queen granting him the kingship of the Ai-Zir? Surely he was a sight to gladden any woman’s heart, tall and strong as a young oak himself, with a graceful stride and that sudden sweet smile. The buzz of speculation grew even louder as Mikantor returned to his place with the onlookers instead of seating himself among the kings.
On her visits to the queens Anderle had been amused to learn how often Mikantor had been before her. She was gratified by how thoroughly he had charmed the women, although the presence of Tirilan made it difficult to broach the possibility of a marriage alliance. What did the girl think she was doing? Her vows prohibited her from marrying Mikantor herself, so why did she stand in the way of an alliance that might bring him warriors? They needed to talk, but Tirilan had been remakably elusive throughout the festival.
The goodwill generated by the prize giving was somewhat tattered by the time they had finished hearing the tally of complaints regarding thefts of stock and violations of borders. Some could be settled with compensation, but not all. The wounds were too deep, the needs too great. They were like starving cattle fighting each other for the last wisps of grass. Anderle drew a deep breath. Now, if ever, the time for change had come. She took up the wand hung with disks of silver and began to shake it, overcoming the dissonant voices with a shimmer of sweet sound.
“Mothers of the people, this cannot go on!” Her stern glance swept the assembly. “We can no longer afford to fight each other. Wind and rain are a sufficient enemy.”
“And will you appoint yourself to judge us, Lady of Avalon?” came a voice from among the men.
“A judge must be able to enforce his rulings. My powers are of the spirit. I can bless or curse, but we have had enough of the latter already. Would you have me curse your seed?” As the uneasy laughter ceased, Anderle shook her head. “We need a judge who is also a Defender, who can enforce his decisions with a precise stroke of the sword, who serves all the tribes while belonging to none.”
“And where, oh great priestess, will you find this paragon?”
“Your children have already found him,” she replied. “He is the Son of a Hundred Kings, descendant of kings from across the sea, but born and bred in this land. He has lived in the moors and marshes and on the plains. He has run with the deer and gained the blessing of the elder folk who were here first of all. He is Mikantor, nephew of Zamara of the Ai-Zir and son of Irnana of Avalon.”
It was not hard to find him. Heads were turning that way like flowers to the sun. From across the circle Mikantor’s gaze flicked to her and then away. Anderle’s lips twitched. If he did not wish to be surprised, he should have made a point of visiting her when he was making his rounds among the queens.
“Let us see him!” came the cry. “Come here where we can look at you!”
Eyes bright with apprehension, excitement, and something suspiciously like amusement, Mikantor came forward, Tirilan at his side. Whatever he expected, he had dressed for the occasion, Anderle observed sourly, in a white short tunic with colored braid at neck and hem. Tirilan wore white as well. Her mother did not know whether to be relieved or angry that she was not wearing the blue of Avalon.
“The Ai-Giru speak for him,” said their queen.
“And the Ai-Utu,” Urtaya, the slender dark woman who was their lady, echoed her.
“Oh, he is a fair young man—” The king of the Ai-Ilf got to his feet. “But there is a difference between borrowing a stud bull and allowing ourselves to be yoked like oxen while he takes over the herd. I serve my queen, but I will bow to no man!” A hubbub of approval from the men’s side echoed him. Mikantor opened his lips as if to speak, but Tirilan squeezed his arm and he remained silent.
“But such a leader has been chosen before, in times of great need.” The voice of Queen Ketaneket rose easily above the noise. “A Defender was named, who protected all the tribes.”
Another murmur swept the assembly as they realized that the queen of Ushan was supporting Mikantor. Eyes flicked to their grizzled king, who responded with a frown. How, wondered Anderle, could they convince the men?
“That’s all very well,” said Menguellet of the Ai-Akhsi, “but the king’s authority comes from the queen, and the queen’s from the Goddess for her land.”
“He have the blessing of the Goddess,” observed an old woman of the elder race who sat among the clanmothers. “When he kills the King Stag, he gives himself to the Lady. Her priestess is there—the one who carried the power.” She pointed to Tirilan. “Let her come to each one of you, learn your lands, be your voice to him.”
Anderle glared at her daughter as the queens began to argue. This was not part of her plan! To be sure, at first Tirilan had looked as surprised as she was, but her expression was changing.
“Will the girl do it?” asked someone. “She is a priestess of Avalon.”
“And bound by vows—” Anderle began, but no one was listening. Tirilan had stepped forward so that light from one of the tears in the canopy made a radiance of her hair. Even for those who did not have the inner Sight, she shone. A cheap trick, thought her mother, if the girl had been aware of it, but Tirilan seemed unconscious of the effect as she turned to face the queens.
“I have sworn to s
erve the goddess . . .” Tirilan’s soft voice, pitched as she had been trained at Avalon, carried easily. “She is One and many, the source and the streams. At Avalon I studied the eternal truths, but on the sacred isle one forgets the needs of those who struggle to live from day to day.” She glanced toward her mother in what might have been apology; then she went on. “I have learned that while we live in bodies, we must honor Spirit as it manifests through each thing—each spring, each field, each tree. To serve Her in the great things, I must pay attention to those that are small.”
Anderle started to speak, but she could feel the mood of the assembly shifting. To make any objection might weaken Mikantor. She seethed silently, recognizing that she was being forced to choose between her plans for Mikantor and for Tirilan.
“Let her come first to me.” Queen Cimara spoke softly, but a buzz of repetition carried her words through the crowd. “I will teach her my Mysteries.”
“And will you give Mikantor the name of king?” asked King Eltan.
“And make him your equal?” responded Cimara with a flash of spirit that reminded Anderle of the girl she once had been. “No. I will choose my king when I rule my land again.” She turned to Mikantor. “Yesterday when we spoke, I had no hope, but last night I dreamed of a dragon and a swan who flew above Azan. You were right, cousin. I have stayed alive, but I have not lived. It is time to change that. I accept your service and I give you a command. Destroy Galid. He is the poison that is killing my land.”
Mikantor went down on one knee before her. “Mother of Azan, I will . . .”
He rose and turned to face the men. “In the Games, you saw that I am blessed by the fellowship of heroes. We are not many, but we can make Galid’s life a misery. Yet that will not destroy him. If you will have me as your leader, you must fight beside me. To take out Galid’s forces will require an army drawn from all the tribes.”
“You are a strong warrior,” King Eltan agreed. “But you must prove you have the favor, not only of the queens but of the gods. Let them give us a Sign that you are their Chosen.”
“In our land we remember that such a Defender bore on each forearm a dragon,” said Queen Urtaya, “pricked into his flesh with thorns, so that he could never forget. If Mikantor will endure that ordeal, Utun will accept his service.”
“He will have something more.” Anderle found her voice at last. “He will have a Sword from the Stars against which no earthly weapon can stand!” If Velantos is able to forge the blade. . . Her gaze found Mikantor’s, and she saw the same question in his eyes.
THE SHORTEST NIGHT HAD fallen. There was a certain release in having made a public commitment, thought Mikantor as he followed the Ai-Utu queen to her fire. At least it relieved him from having to make any more decisions. Sparks whirled up to mingle with the stars as more wood was tossed on. It reminded him of the forge fire, and abruptly he wished Velantos could be with him now. Perhaps his decision to save the smith was the choice that had brought him to this day. If he had not done so, he might still be a slave in the lands of the Middle Sea.
But if he did not have Velantos, at least he had Tirilan. Instinctively he reached out to her and found her hand waiting to slip into his own. Word of what had happened at the conclave had spread throughout the encampment, and people were already gathering. He supposed it was too much to ask that he be allowed to endure his ordeal in privacy. That was another choice he had forgone by committing himself to serve them all.
He had assumed it would take time to find someone who knew how to prick the pattern, but after the meeting an old man of the elder folk had appeared with a basket full of bags containing powdered colors and a piece of rolled leather full of thorns. Mikantor told himself he should be grateful that all the symbols with which he had been covered for the running of the deer had only been painted on. Going into a battle was different. You knew you might be wounded, but never really believed it. He thought about being pricked by thorns, like the stings of a thousand bees, and realized with bitter amusement that he was not sure how well he would endure the pain.
“It will be all right,” said Tirilan. “They have said that you may lie with your head in my lap while the old man is working.”
“That will certainly distract me—” he said with a smile.
“I thought it might—” She squeezed his hand.
“Better lay a piece of heavy cloth across my loins, lest I embarrass us all,” he added, and saw her blush, and laughed.
They had laid out a straw mattress near the bonfire. The old man was there already, mixing a dark blue liquid in a bowl made from the bottom half of a gourd. The Sacred Sisters were there as well, with Anderle. He ought to have expected they would come to bear witness for their tribes, reflected Mikantor as he bowed.
“The boy has good manners,” said one of them. He thought it was Linne of the Ai-Giru. “You taught him well—”
“I have tried . . .” Anderle’s tone was even, but Mikantor felt Tirilan’s fingers tighten on his. The priestess got to her feet, draperies as blue as the stuff in the pot swirling around her.
“Mikantor, son of Irnana, you are summoned here to confirm your commitment to all the tribes. Know that in the ancient lands across the sea, these dragons marked those of the royal line who dedicated themselves to serve. Is that your true will?”
My true will . . . His head whirled. How could you ever really tell? He knew only that he had set his feet upon a path from which he could not turn back now.
“I serve my Lady. I am ready to do Her will . . .” he said aloud, not adding that ever since he returned to Avalon he had seen the Goddess with the face of Tirilan.
His tunic had short sleeves, so he need not disrobe. He pulled at the lacing on his leather bracers, slid them off, and handed them to Ganath, who had entered with the rest of the Companions behind him. With their eyes upon him he would not dare to groan. The skin that the bracers had covered was pale, the skin tight across the hard muscle, threaded by blue veins. The tattooing should show up well.
Tirilan took her place at the head of the pallet, and Mikantor eased down before her, suppressing his response. He had not been entirely joking about the cloth. When I no longer rise to your touch, my beloved, he thought wryly, you will know I am dead and gone. They gave him a piece of wood to grip with his other hand.
“I am Fox,” said the old man in the elder tongue. “You will please lie very still.”
“I thank you, honored one,” Mikantor answered in the same language, stretching out his arm. He twitched at the first touch, but it was only a narrow brush with which Fox was drawing the sinuous shape around his arm.
“Breathe slowly,” came Anderle’s voice from the other side of the fire when the design had been drawn on both arms. “Ride the drumming. Ride the song . . .”
He closed his eyes and Tirilan set her hands on either side of his head, stroking back his hair. This is not so bad, he thought at the first prick of the thorn. He breathed in to the drumbeat and out again. Tap, tap, tap, the little hammer pecked the thorn into his skin with a rhythm like the beat when Velantos was hammering out some golden ornament in the forge. If beating on me would help you to master that lump of metal, he thought distractedly, I would set my arm on the anvil. It was beginning to hurt more now, a throbbing ache that radiated out from the actual wounds. He tried to make his pain an offering, but it was getting hard to think about anything but his arm.
“Breathe slowly,” whispered Tirilan as he gasped. “I am here . . .” Mikantor let out his breath, forcing himself to relax against her. “Do not resist the pain, let it flow through you . . .”
“You are flowing in the river, you are blowing through the grass, you are glowing in the fire, you are here and you shall pass,” the women sang.
Mikantor fixed his mind on the images, and for a moment he rode the agony. Did a woman in childbed feel like this, striving to bring new life into the world? He took another breath, let it out, clinging to the beat of the drum.
&
nbsp; “You are here and you shall pass . . .” they sang once more. Who were the men who had worn these dragons before? His mind reeled and for a moment he was standing on a terrace of reddish stone, looking down at a sea whose color was a brighter blue than any that ever washed his own Isle’s shores.
“From life to life still learning, to joy transmute your pain. From death’s dark sleep returning, walk in light again,” came the singing. It was one of the sacred chants of Avalon. If he could sink into that sleep, where would he awaken? His awareness flickered with memories that were not his own.
And then the singing stopped. He lay, breathing carefully, a part of his mind wondering at the throbbing ache in his arm while the rest grasped at the images that had come with that pain. There was movement around him. The old man was switching to his other side.
No—he thought dimly at the first prick of the thorn. I can’t do this again. Not yet. Not now! But his will did not reach his limbs. The drumming caught his breath, and as the anguish in his right arm began to match that in his left he let it carry him away. The rush of images began to focus to the memories of one lifetime, the one he needed to remember now.
He was rocking in a boat as the world exploded in fire and thunder, seeking something unimaginably precious that he had lost . . . He was standing in the ring of a great henge, singing to the stones . . . He was standing atop the Tor at Avalon, a bright-haired woman in his arms . . .
He opened his eyes, saw her gazing down at him. “Eilantha . . .” he whispered. Her expression changed as confusion gave way to a dawning joy.
“Osinarmen . . .” she replied. “At last, we have returned.”
He could feel the dragons on his arms outlined in fire. His gaze met that of the old man, who faltered for a moment, then bent back to his work. He gazed around the circle of faces, sensing that if he looked long enough at some of them he would know their names. His gaze met that of the slight, dark woman on the other side of the fire, and he remembered that she had been a mother to him, though never the woman who bore him. Nor had this earth borne him, though it had cradled his bones.