Heart of Ice

Chapter 8

Quite soon after her arrival in the secret place at the heart of the forest of Broceliande, Joanna discovered why the location was so precious to her people.

The revelation came about on a bright April morning of sudden warm sunshine after several days of rain. There was peaty standing water in the low-lying areas of sallow and dogwood around the settlement, which gave off a pungent, invigorating scent that was the very distillation of growth. The trees were putting on their spring green raiment, the tender, unfurling leaves brilliant with raindrops, and the air smelt heady and sweet, like a potent drug. Joanna and the younger of the two women who had escorted her to Folle-Pensee — the older woman had returned to her cottage near the coast — had just finished clearing away their breakfast meal when Huathe came to the door of the shelter.

‘Fearn will take care of the child,’ he commanded, and the young woman jumped to obey; Joanna had been in the process of washing Meggie’s rosy bottom prior to dressing her, and Fearn took the cloth out of Joanna’s hand and resumed the task.

Huathe was already setting off along the path marked with stones. Obediently Joanna fell into step behind him. They walked for a hundred or so paces and Joanna noticed that the path was getting narrower; the stone border had petered out and suddenly she had a weird sense of having stepped beyond the human realm and into some strange place that belonged solely to the woodland. To the trees, the flowers, the birds and the small, secretive animals whose presence was only detectable by tiny rustlings in the grass.

Perhaps some sort of reaction was common at this spot; for Huathe turned and gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Not far now,’ he said.

I don’t mind how far it is, Joanna might have replied; this is like walking in paradise and I could happily remain here all day.

A movement caught her eye and she looked up to see a tree creeper searching for insects on the trunk of a pine tree. Then from further away, as if the bird knew how special this moment was for her and was celebrating it, she heard her first cuckoo of the year. Standing quite still, an entranced smile on her lips, she listened as the sound came closer.

Suddenly a pair of birds swooped towards her through the upper branches of the pine and the birch trees. She thought at first that they were sparrowhawks, for they seemed to carry their weight in their flattish heads and necks. She noticed that Huathe had also stopped and was standing a few paces further along the path; the birds, intent on their mating ritual, were oblivious to both of them. Then the male bird gave the unmistakable call: Cuck-koo! Cuck-koo!

Thrilled, she turned to Huathe, who was looking similarly delighted. ‘We are blessed, Beith,’ he said softly, ‘for the cuckoo is a shy bird and it is rare for him to show himself.’ Moving closer, he added, ‘It is said among the country folk that in winter the cuckoo turns into a hawk, for he is never seen except in the spring and the summer.’

‘Is he. .’ She hesitated, for the question seemed silly. But Huathe was looking at her with such kindness in his deep eyes that she decided it didn’t matter. ‘Is the cuckoo magic?’

Huathe laughed gently. ‘No, Beith. I have had the luxury of time to observe the habits of birds and what I think is this: some birds like a warmer or a colder winter than that common to these temperate lands. It is my conclusion that the cuckoo, in common with the swallow and the swift, flies away at the end of the summer to spend the cold half of the year in some warm place far to the south.’

‘But how-’ But how could a tiny bird fly so far? she wanted to demand; it seemed as silly as suggesting that cuckoos could magically turn themselves into hawks. Huathe, however, was her teacher and the man who ordered her days and it would not do to question his wisdom; she firmly closed her mouth.

They walked on. Huathe made a turn to his right and then they were climbing, the path winding this way and that as it ascended what appeared to be a low knoll set deep among the trees. Somewhere close at hand a chaffinch was singing, the distinctive three-note conclusion to its complicated trill sounding like cross the stream!

The sound of water was all around, rippling, bubbling and gurgling, always just out of sight through the trees and the undergrowth. Joanna peered into the dense green, trying to discover where the stream ran; she thought she saw a movement in the trees and, eyes darting back to the spot, she saw a flash of deeper green against the spring foliage and stared the more fixedly.

And Huathe gave a soft laugh and said, ‘Do not try so hard, Beith! The fleeting glance obtains the best result.’

So there was someone — something — out there! Joanna’s first reaction was excitement, and it was only after another spell of silent walking that she felt a tremor of fear.

Now they were deep in the forest and the path was little more than a faint animal track; one of so many similar ones that Joanna knew that, left alone here, she would never find her way out. The fledgling fear grew, threatening to overwhelm her. But then a cool voice said right inside her head, Remember your initiation at the Rollright Stones. You were afraid then, too, but you used your logic and all was well.

Yes! Oh, yes, she remembered that all right! She thought back to that extraordinary night and reminded herself how she had quashed her panic and used her common sense. I could do that here if I had to, she told herself firmly. And, walking on, raised her chin as if in answer to an unspoken challenge.

Huathe was moving more swiftly now and she broke into a trot to keep up with him. Under a broken branch, over an outcrop of stones, past the great bulge of a yew tree’s thick foliage; they were still climbing and she was panting. Then a sudden sense of light as the forest canopy thinned: Huathe had stopped and, coming to stand beside him, she found herself looking at brilliant sunshine illuminating a wide glade right at the summit of the hill.

He did not speak but stood with a gentle smile on his face, allowing her to see for herself. And Joanna, already drugged with the very essence of spring, tried to take in everything at once and made herself dizzy in the attempt. Shaking her head, laughing, she tried again.

Gradually her eyes became accustomed to the dazzle of light on the amazing scene before her. Most of the trees had been cleared away, so that sentinel oaks stood in a protective circle around an all but bare hilltop; the exception was a lone oak under which there grew an ancient hawthorn that seemed to crouch like an old man huddled in upon himself. A long, thin white banner had been fastened to an upper branch. The hawthorn stood above a small cairn of granite rocks whose purpose she did not immediately discern.

Then she realised that the sound of water was much louder here. Leaping forward, she saw that the rise of the ground immediately in front of her had in fact concealed the stream that flowed out from the hillside, shallow across stones and as clear as light, running away down to her right, towards the valley below. Looking to her left, up to the very top of the hill, she saw now that the cairn marked the place where the water issued out of the earth. She glanced at Huathe and, at his nod of permission, she walked slowly up the stream to the cairn.

Beside the cairn, at the spot immediately above the sparkling spring, there was a huge, flat piece of granite, almost like a platform. It had an aura of power about it and she knew not to stand on it. Instead she fell to her knees and peered down into the hollow basin into which the spring flowed out of the hillside. The bed of the basin was pale, as if white powder had been spilt there, and at frequent intervals a small line of air bubbles would rise out of it and come up to the surface. It was quite hypnotic; Joanna wriggled round until she was lying on her stomach and, gazing into the water, she noticed that some of the flat stones on the stream bed had developing newts clinging to their smooth surfaces.

Presently Huathe spoke. ‘This is the spring of Barenton,’ he intoned, ‘although some call it Merlin’s Fountain.’

She knew he was going to speak again and so she did not answer. After a pause, he said, ‘To us, this place is Nime, for that is the name of the goddess whose spirit is here. It is she who brings the Mother’s gift of water from the Otherworld that is the source of life. Her presence blesses the water and the place and her power protects both.’

Nime, Joanna repeated to herself. Still she did not speak; there was something in the air — tension, anticipation — that told her not to.

‘You have felt the power and the presence, Beith; I read this in you.’ She nodded. ‘I observed your glance at the stone’ — he indicated the huge slab of granite — ‘and I sense that you knew without being told that it is a force focus and not a place for the casual footstep.’

Joanna watched as he approached the stone platform and, after a low bow, knelt before it and put his hands on its glassy surface. Then he reached down into the basin and dipped his fingertips into the bright water, straightening up and allowing drops to fall on the granite.

It seemed to Joanna that a mist began to form immediately over the flat stone, as if the spring water were vaporising; the creamy mist swirled, forming itself into shapes that endured for the blink of an eye before dissipating and reforming as something else. Joanna thought she saw shadowy robed figures; a running horse; an arrow’s flight; a sword. She felt a sort of pulse briefly beat through the warm air, as if thunder had exploded in the distance and its shock waves had reached her before its sound. Then, to complete the image, she heard a muffled thunderclap.

She whispered, ‘What is it? What are you doing?’

Huathe smiled. ‘Do not be alarmed; you are quite safe. People sometimes scare themselves here; for the unwary hear the rumours and the old tales and they come here to test them out. More than once we have had to treat foolhardy men who stamp on this sacred stone and then are terrified when the predicted response comes.’

‘What happens?’

Huathe shrugged. ‘Usually a storm, or what is perceived to be a storm.’

‘And they — these people — they are injured?’

‘Their minds are injured, for sometimes they imagine that lightning strikes them, or that it strikes trees which then fall upon them.’

‘But. .’ She was struggling to understand. ‘But these things don’t really happen?’

Huathe was smiling again. ‘Beith, there is so much you must learn. First, you have to open your mind to possibilities. Our great task is to search for the sublime, to delve into what is secret and arcane and, by so doing, achieve the uplifting that is our destiny.’

Reeling from his announcement, from the concept of opening a mind that she had never actually considered closed, she realised that he was speaking again; thankfully, for she was not sure how much more she could absorb, he had turned to matters which, in the light of her own experience, she felt better able to comprehend.

‘We use the spring water to make our divination mirror,’ Huathe was saying. ‘The water is collected in a bowl of red granite. On clear nights, Moon’s reflection in the still, dark water of the basin gives the illusion that she is drawn down to Earth and so we tell ourselves that she is temporarily within our reach.

‘But,’ he went on after a moment, ‘the water has another purpose, and it is to do with this that you have been sent here.’ He had moved away from the granite slab as he spoke and now stood beside her once more. Looking right into her eyes — into her soul, she thought, for she had no defence against his penetration and did not dare look away — he said, ‘Beith, I know what you have done. You took life and an adjustment must be made.’

Adjustment. She did not know what he meant. ‘I am to be punished?’ She heard the shake in her voice.

‘No, that would not be appropriate,’ he said quickly, looking away from her and out across the glade, ‘for to kill in self-defence or to protect those who cannot protect themselves is to us no crime. But because of your actions two men died, and your spirit carries the burden of that. The adjustment of which I speak involves recompense; in order to balance what has happened to you, you must save the lives of two people who are dying.’

‘Me! I can’t save life, I don’t know how to!’ Huathe, still serenely smiling, ignored her outburst. She forced herself to think sensibly. Save lives. Did that mean she was to treat the sick? ‘It is true that I have a little herb lore,’ she said tentatively, ‘for I was well taught in my youth and have studied the matter more intensively in the course of the last two years. But I do not know nearly enough to save lives!’

‘Not yet,’ he remarked. ‘And it is a good beginning, young Beith, to recognise one’s ignorance.’ He turned back to face her again. ‘But you will learn,’ he said in a tone that allowed no argument, ‘and that is why you are here.’

Joanna stayed at Folle-Pensee throughout the spring and summer. It was a period of such intensive study and learning that at times she had to isolate herself from the community and, alone in the forest, try to order and make sense of the endless lore, the legends and stories, the whirling thoughts and inspirational possibilities that her teachers were instilling into her. She realised that, while people came and went from Folle-Pensee quite regularly, there remained a core of elders and teachers who were healers or instructors; sometimes, like Huathe, they were both. These elders lived in the relative comfort of the low granite cottages; for temporary residents such as Joanna, it was the shelter under the birch trees.

Not knowing how much she already knew, her teachers started at the beginning, telling her of the Goddess and the Earth that is her body; of the Earth’s natural rhythms and how the people learned the Mother’s lesson of how to position stones and mounds to maintain her body’s balance. On a starry night at the end of April, Joanna joined a procession that wound its way down through the Broceliande on the long road south-westwards to the standing stones that marched in ranks on the headland above the sea. There, in the light of the stars, she stood waiting with her people, although she did not know what they waited for.

Then the Moon rose.

The first sight of the brilliant moonlight on the endless rows of huge stones, their shadows lengthening on the springy grass as if they were an advancing army, was something that Joanna never forgot. And when she heard the chanting begin — a sole voice joined by another, then another, then more and more until it seemed that the very Earth was singing — she thought her heart would break with joy.

As if that powerful experience had been the introduction, they taught her astrology and how to make a mental map of the night sky so that, when asked where to find the Little Bear, the Swan, Cassiopeia or the Heavenly Twins, she could instantly point in the right direction. They taught her to make the association between the moving pattern of the stars over her head and the turn of the seasons on Earth below and she understood then how the two were and had always been interdependent. She learned of the fundamental link between the heavens and the people, animals and plants of Earth, and she came to know instinctively how and why a person born in late January differed from one born in mid-August, and why crops must be planted and harvested only at certain times.

At the midsummer solstice she went with her people to gather at a long, ground-hugging structure made of great granite stones, arranged so that the doorway stones allowed but a low, dark entrance into the interior. They stood vigil through the short hours of darkness and then, as the Sun rose, his first rays shot like an arrow from the eastern horizon, over the hills and vales and straight into the entrance to the long barrow. The sexual imagery was obvious and, to Joanna’s surprise, there was quite a lot of laughter and ribald joking. She asked her teachers later if this had not been disrespectful.

‘Do you not laugh and joke after the sexual act, Beith?’ they asked her. ‘Does the Goddess-given ecstasy not make you joyful?’

‘Er-’ But the answer was complex and would have taken far too long, so Joanna did not give it.

They smiled, taking her reluctance as coyness. ‘Do not be shy,’ an incredibly old woman said. ‘And do not fear to join in the fun the next time you witness the God penetrate the Goddess and you feel their passion reflected in your own body!’

They taught her how to recognise, collect and prepare the magical drugs that give insight and, in a lucky few, open the window on the future and bestow the gift of prophecy. They watched over her as she drank down the draught that her own hands had prepared and they listened to her as, deep in her own inner world, she cried out and sobbed as the images formed, broke and formed again. She learned how to channel the power and use it for the benefit of others and, in time, dreams, trance and vision became some of her most valuable and potent tools.

She learned the long history of her people. Over four successive nights leading up to Lughnasadh, she sat with her people around a fire and they listened in utter silence to one of the great bards tell the story of how they came out of the East and the Great Mother showed them the vast river that winds through the lands like the blood in the Mother’s own body. He told how she led them to the wonderfully rich and fertile area at the headwaters of three great rivers, giving them this precious piece of her body as a place in which they might settle and thrive so that, in time, their descendants grew numerous and confident and set out to spread themselves throughout the green lands. He described the journeys westwards and northwards and, because his gift of communication meant that he was aware how important it was to make a story personal for its audience, he finished by describing the very place in which they sat in the warmth of a summer night.

When she had learned all of that, at last they began on the long road that would make her a healer.

As the days shortened and the first leaves began to turn, a newcomer arrived in the settlement at Folle-Pensee. Joanna was preoccupied and barely noticed him; Huathe was teaching her the extraordinary concept that a person’s body may be made ill because their mind is in distress, and she was undergoing another period of having her mind stretched to encompass something that she could hardly believe. Huathe had ordered her to spend the day with two of his patients, a woman whose grief for a stillborn baby had rendered her feeble-minded and mute and a youth who wanted them to amputate his arm as he feared it would pick up a sword and cut his parents to pieces. The impact of those two damaged minds had been harrowing and Joanna was exhausted when she returned to the shelter.

Fearn, who had remained there to greet her when she came in, gave her a hug and a mug containing a restorative infusion. ‘Don’t expect to grasp it all at once,’ she murmured, and Joanna gave her a grateful smile. ‘That’s better!’ Fearn said. ‘Now, you sit there — here’s Meggie, see, wanting a cuddle! — and I’ll bring you something to eat. Then we’re in for a treat because Reynard’s here!’

At ten months, Meggie was a strong and active child, able to stand if she held on tight to someone’s hand. As Fearn deposited her in Joanna’s lap, the little girl turned to give her mother a smile.

You, my precious, smile like your father, Joanna thought. The resemblance was enhanced by Meggie’s velvet brown eyes; if ever the two stood side by side, there would be no denying who had engendered this child. .

Don’t think about that, Joanna told herself. Think instead about this Reynard, whoever he might be, and why the fact of his having arrived is making Fearn so excited that she’s just spilt the milk.

She never forgot Reynard, although his enduring place in her memory was more because of what came soon afterwards than for himself. Not that he was insignificant; nobody could have called him that. He was a man of indeterminable age who apparently lived alone in the wildwood and communicated with the animals; they said he was a shape shifter, one who was able to take on the spirit and essence of an animal and project it so that it walked the Earth and would sometimes act according to the man’s wishes. He had a head of tangled russet-coloured hair and was heavily bearded and he wore a garment made of animal skins decorated with shells, feathers and small white teeth. His spirit animal, they said, was the fox; he wore its fur and his essence mixed with that of the fox.

Tired from her day’s efforts, lulled by the warmth of the fire and the soft sounds of Meggie asleep in her arms, Joanna watched Reynard dancing and listened to his yelping song. In the firelight his image seemed to float close and then away again and, seen through the smoke, it really did appear that he changed from man to fox and back again.

But of course, she thought drowsily, he can’t possibly do that. .

On the night of the autumn equinox they told her that she must leave Meggie with Fearn and go off alone into the forest. She must find her way to the fountain of Nime. Naturally, they did not tell her why.

She had learned much in the six months since Huathe had first taken her deep in the forest to the spring and at first she was not afraid. She hummed as she strode along the tracks, aware of the forest life all around her but content in the knowledge that if she did no harm then no harm would be done to her.

Then she heard soft, stealthy movement away off to her right.

She remembered the faint green figure she had seen under the pines on that first visit.

She clutched the bear’s claw that she wore around her neck and made herself stride on.

She reached the open glade, heartened by the happy sound of the stream. She gave a nod of greeting to the hawthorn bush — it looked even more like a crouching man in the moonlight — and went to kneel down so that she could put her fingers in the cold water of the spring. She resumed her humming.

Then he was standing beside her as if he had sprung out of nowhere. Without turning, she knew who he was; nobody on Earth smelled quite like he did. It was more than half a year since she had seen him, since he had summoned her at the great Imbolc festival, but as she leapt up and felt his warm, strong arms encircle her, it seemed as if she had been there, so close to him that she could feel his heart beating, all the time.

In that instant of reunion she remembered everything; how he had appeared to her simultaneously as bear and man, how her delight in him was in part because of the wildness of him, the feel of soft fur brushing against her naked flesh whose origin could equally well have been the soft skins in which they had lain or his own pelt.

But he was man, she knew that now, for they had coupled as man and woman and it had been an experience whose power had left her weak. Now he was here, she was in his arms once more and there was an inevitability about the meeting that told her it was destined; that there was a pattern to her life and he was a crucial part of it.

He kissed her, his hands under her tunic tender and warm on her bare skin. He did not hurry; it seemed that he would take all the time that was required to arouse her and make her ready for him. Entranced, enraptured, Joanna gave herself up to him and did not think to tell him that she had been more than ready from the moment he had touched her.

He led her across the glade and down a narrow track that led to a bracken-roofed den lined with furs. Then he slipped her tunic over her head and removed his own garments. Lying down beside her, he touched the bear claw in its silver mount. He smiled — she caught the glitter of white teeth — and then, bending to kiss her, tip-tonguing his way from her neck down over her breasts to her belly, his fingers on her, inside her, slippery in her own moisture, slowly, slowly he entered her.

In the morning, just as before, she woke alone. Warmly wrapped in furs that smelt of him, she lay on her back staring up at the golden birch leaves high above. Soon — for she was ravenously hungry — she sat up, dressed, tidied the den as best she could and set off on the long walk back down to the settlement.

Chapter 9

Joanna’s departure from Folle-Pensee came as suddenly and unexpectedly as her arrival; one morning in early October, when the clear sky appeared deep blue in contrast to the ochre and bronze of the autumn leaves, the order came that she was to prepare for her next journey and they would be leaving that evening.

Four of them left the Broceliande settlement as the sun went down: Huathe, Joanna, Meggie and a slim, lithe figure cloaked in dark grey who wore a deep hood concealing the head and face. They travelled through the woodland paths for a long time; Joanna could tell by the Moon that it was after midnight when they stopped, making their camp on the dry and dusty floor of a hollow crevice in an outcrop of rock. She had been watching the sky whenever the tree canopy allowed a clear sight and she knew that they had been walking north-westwards; wherever they were bound, it was not, therefore, to the beach where she had first landed in Armorica because that lay due north of Folle-Pensee. But there was no point in speculating; she would find out their destination soon enough.

They walked for all of the next day and the day after that. When Joanna became tired — for much of the time she was carrying Meggie and, at almost a year, she was no longer a lightweight — Huathe would take the child and let her ride on his shoulders. Their frequent but brief stops were usually taken when Meggie, fed up both with being carried in a sling and born aloft on Huathe’s shoulders, clamoured too persistently to get down.

Their marching order did not vary: the hooded figure went first, maintaining a steady pace that allowed them to cover the ground quickly; then came Huathe; and Joanna brought up the rear. Late on the second day, Joanna sensed that they were near the water and as they reached the summit of a long, heather-covered incline, abruptly the huge expanse of the sea appeared before them, dark green and lit with diamonds in the fading light.

They made an awkward descent down a tortuous track that went steeply down the low cliff and emerged on to a narrow, rocky shore that faced out due north across the sea. Then Joanna was told to find a place out of the wind to feed her child and settle her for the night. ‘We will come for you when we are ready,’ Huathe said, ‘but you must come alone.’

Once she might have protested that it was not safe to leave an infant sleeping alone under a cliff. Now she knew better. Although she did not know the identity of the hooded figure, she realised that he — possibly she — was one of the Great Ones and possessed even more power than Huathe. They would not allow any harm to come to Meggie.

And that, she thought with a sudden burst of confidence, is ignoring my power, for now I sense that I am fully competent to protect my daughter myself.

Soon they came for her. She was ready; Meggie lay warm, fed and deeply asleep in a cocoon of soft blankets inside Joanna’s cloak. Joanna stood in her tunic and shift, barefoot on the sand, and felt no chill but instead a hot glow of anticipation.

She followed Huathe and the hooded figure along the shore to a place at the western end of the bay. The shoreline faced north-west and on the clear horizon Joanna thought she could make out the faint outlines of seven islands. A small fire had been lit and pieces of driftwood fuel had been set out beside it. A fur-lined cloak had been spread on the sand. Something was bubbling in a pot suspended over the fire on a simple tripod; curls of steam rose from the pot and a sharp scent mixed with something sweetish filled the air. The hooded figure leaned forward and, with a gloved hand, removed the pot from the fire, setting it in a hollow in the damp sand to cool. After a moment, the figure poured the liquid from the pot into a small pewter cup and offered the cup to Joanna. She said quietly, ‘Am I to drink all of it?’ and Huathe said ‘Yes.’

The drug took hold very quickly.

She was aware of strong hands holding her arms, guiding her so that she lay down on the cloak. She was sufficiently conscious to mutter her thanks — already her legs had begun to give way beneath her — and then her soul seemed to fly out of her body away over the emerald sea. .

She saw the seven islands but so swiftly that there was only time to count them. Then she flew on, over the waves that rose up to meet her and refresh her with their spray, on towards land. But it was no land that she knew, for it lay in the vast reaches of sea where the western ocean begins and, even as her eyes took in details, she realised that it existed not now, in her time, but in a time of the far past only reachable now in dream and in vision.

She flew over a shore of white sand and then inland, over a woodland where sunlight sparkled on hurrying streams and on the bright green of springtime. There were figures running and dancing beneath the trees and, flying low to look at them more closely, she saw that they were the Korrigan, the earlier race who were the first to come over the sea out of the west, bringing with them the most profound knowledge that was necessary for an understanding of the Earth.

Then she was floating over a city on a grassy plain, its towers flying proud banners that blew in the westerly wind. The buildings were strange, delicate structures, in a style that she had never seen and that seemed too fragile, surely, to bear their own weight. They were made of pinkish stone and many had towers of pure white. Tall trees grew among the buildings and there were courtyards full of flowers where fountains played and the air was the colour of rainbows. There was a sense of vibrant colour, of a love of beauty that recognised it in nature and tried to emulate it in every man-made structure. There was song and laughter on the air, as if the people found life a constant delight.

She seemed to come to rest above a large building that must be a palace. It was situated above the sea so that, looking out through its many windows or from the numerous terraces, it would appear that you stood directly over the water and perhaps floated upon its surface. As if her eyes could travel independently of her body, she could see within the palace to where nine auburn-haired women dressed in white sat around a brazier in which blue and violet flames burned. The room where they sat was circular, its walls nothing but slim pillars through which the sound of the sea blew in on the scented air. The women were chanting softly and there was strong magic all around them.

Then the scene shifted and with a suddenness that was as shocking as the events themselves, Joanna saw a violating army come crashing through the palace. First came men in the garb of soldiers, then came the holy men with their shaven heads and their musty robes, holding wooden crosses in front of them as if they were swords. They came at the white-robed women like an advancing sea and drove them out of the pillared room, across the terrace and out over the dizzying gap beyond; it seemed to Joanna that the women turned into delicate, graceful white birds whose cry hung on the air like a lament.

Then the waters rose. High, higher, higher, and a deep voice chanted in a language that she did not understand. The soldiers and the holy men looked at first haughty, as if to say, we do not fear your magic! But their expressions became wary and then fearful; the waters were rising, rising, and from the city came sounds of masonry crashing down into the waves. The screams of the invaders mingled with the shrieks of the sea birds that wheeled and circled above.

Joanna made herself watch even when she would have shut her eyes against the dread sights. The soldiers and the holy men died, some bravely, trying to help their comrades; some as base cowards, scrambling over drowning men as they desperately tried to save their own skins.

All of them perished in the unforgiving seas.

When it was all over, there was nothing left on the surface of the water to show where there had once been land. But, listening carefully, Joanna thought she heard the doleful sound of a slowly tolling bell.

Then, without any sensation of travelling, she was somewhere else. It was a dark, sombre place, and the mood was sorrowful. Violence had been done; pain had been inflicted and there had been a death; the victim had been a great and important figure and both the death and the manner of it were greatly mourned. Joanna was looking down into a glade that was very familiar but, before she could latch on to that thought and identify the place, her mind was wrenched away. Now she saw a vast circle of white-robed figures moving slowly like a huge wheel, their heads bowed, small flames in their hands. They were chanting and, as the words translated in Joanna’s head, she knew that it was a lament for the dead one. In the centre of the circle an enormous fire had been lit and as the flames scorched up into the sky, it seemed to Joanna that a figure rode upon them, a figure miraculously returned to youth who smiled and laughed and sang aloud for joy.

I know you! Joanna thought, you are-

But, again, her mind was torn away. And now, bizarrely, she was looking down at herself. She was dressed in a hooded red tunic decorated with rich embroidery and over it she wore a cloak in a sort of speckled wool, fastened at the neck with a gold pin. Her head was bare and her dark hair hung in a long, thick plait down her back. In her hand she held a short wooden stick, the end of which had been hollowed out so that a smoky brown crystal could be inserted. The crystal was roughly the length of her palm, cut to a flattened hexagon and with a pointed tip. She stood with her eyes closed, holding the wand over a bowl of clear water.

People were sobbing with pain, or perhaps fear; it seemed that they were calling out to her. Then suddenly Meggie was beside her; an older Meggie who stood confidently on her own two feet and, looking up at her mother, tried to speak. As Joanna stared at her vision self, she saw her daughter slowly begin to open her hand. .

The transition back to the shore and the October night was brutal. Joanna lay on the sand, eyes tight shut, trying to control the dreadful dizziness that filled her head and her belly, putting her hands to her head to crush the terrible pain that seemed to be splitting her skull in two. The bile rose into her mouth and, raising herself up, she leaned over the sand and vomited.

There was a cool hand on her forehead, holding her while she heaved and convulsed. Then a voice said calmly, ‘It is often thus the first time. You will never suffer as badly as this again.’

Small comfort, Joanna thought, as another spasm tore through her. She heard herself groan, then the same cool hand pressed her back so that she was once more lying on the cloak. Huathe appeared with a blanket, which he tucked around her; she was grateful for its warmth and tried to give him a smile of thanks. He muttered something about fetching her a restorative, and turned towards the fire.

Joanna stared up at the hooded figure. ‘I know who you are,’ she said, her throat sore from the vomiting.

The figure drew back the hood, revealing deep-set dark eyes in a face whose skin was so smooth and unlined that it belied the long, snow-white hair. She — for it was a woman — wore a pale robe under the dark cloak and around her throat was a silver lunula.

It was the Domina and, eight months ago, it had been she who initiated Joanna into the tribe. Now, looking down on Joanna with a kind smile, she said, ‘Aye. I have been with you, child, for some time, for I am your anam chara. Your soul friend,’ she translated. ‘You have done well.’

‘You were at Folle-Pensee?’ I didn’t see you, she wanted to add.

‘I was in the forest. I stayed close to Nime’s spring.’

‘Yes.’ It made sense, for the spring was the source of the power.

‘You have just made your first soul journey,’ the Domina went on, ‘and, although I sense that I know what you saw, we wish you to tell us.’

Huathe had made her a hot drink, which he gave to her; she sipped at it and felt the restorative honey which he had melted into whatever herbal brew he had prepared course through her. The nausea had receded; she sat up and began to speak.

The vision was so fresh that she did not think she had omitted anything. As she spoke she saw the Domina and Huathe exchange occasional glances and once, when she described the death of the beloved figure in the dark wood, Huathe made as if to speak, but the Domina hushed him.

When Joanna had finished, the Domina briefly closed her eyes and raised her head, almost as if she were giving thanks. Then, dark eyes snapping open and drilling into Joanna’s, she said, ‘You are honoured. You have been granted a sight of the blessed land that was our first home here beyond the great sea, where the Korrigan settled and built their city of granite, marble and glass.’

‘It’s gone,’ Joanna said, a sob in her voice. ‘It slipped under the waves and they all drowned.’

‘Not all,’ the Domina corrected. ‘Did you not hear the sea birds? The Korrigan flew away to safety as gulls; the Grac’h as terns.’

‘The Grac’h?’

‘We call them the fiery-haired ones; they were the high priestesses of the land.’

Joanna reached deep into her mind, for she was certain that she knew what the land had been called. The Domina waited calmly. Eventually Joanna said, ‘It was Lyonesse.’

And the Domina said, ‘It was. The land held true to the old ways and the men who brought the new faith could not abide that. They came with soldiers and would have slaughtered everyone in the land, down to the youngest baby. So the Grac’h called up the west wind and the waves blew in on the great sea that rose to their bidding. The land was lost to them, that loveliest and most serene of lands, but that was preferable to witnessing its rape and despoliation at the hands of the invader. The Korrigan flew south to the shores of Armorica and they discovered that, although this was no Lyonesse, it was a tolerable substitute.’ The Domina sighed. ‘But still, those of us who remember lament our first home.’

She must, Joanna decided, be speaking figuratively, perhaps of a folk memory that lived on in the people, kept alive by the bards’ retelling of the old legend. Anything else was just impossible. .

As if keen to move on, the Domina said, ‘You also saw something else; the death whose wake you witnessed was that of one of our Great Ones.’

‘Yes,’ Joanna put in eagerly, ‘and I really felt that, given a moment to think, I could have-’

‘And you also saw a vision of your own future,’ the Domina interrupted. ‘This moment that you saw will come soon, for the time for you to take up your skill and your power is at hand.’ Giving Joanna no chance to comment, she went on, ‘We have prepared these things for you. Stand up and take off your tunic and shift.’

Joanna did as she was bidden. Standing naked on the sand, the Domina led her closer to the fire. Huathe came to stand beside her and he poured a clear liquid from a flask into a small cup of gold.

‘Drink,’ the Domina ordered.

Joanna obeyed. The liquid tasted clean and cool, and as the taste developed on her tongue an image of mossy stone around a lively stream came into her mind; she knew then that the water had come from Nime’s spring. Then the Domina pushed her closer to the fire, so close that she feared the flames would singe the fine hair on her body and sear her bare flesh. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to endure it.

The Domina’s cry rang out into the night as she chanted a long string of words whose meaning Joanna could only guess at. It seemed to be a summons, and this was borne out when the Domina switched from whatever archaic tongue she had been using and cried, ‘Hear our prayers, oh Great Ones of Lyonesse, and by the fire and by the water that must one day prevail, receive this woman Beith, who now takes on her new name in recognition of her adoption by her people.’

The fire was scorching now, burning Joanna’s legs and thighs. Forcing herself not to move, the pain quickly became unbearable. Then, as if she had passed some test, the Domina gave an order to Huathe and he dragged her away from the fire, throwing the contents of a skin water bag over the front of her body. As the cold sea water doused the heat in her skin, she gave a cry that had in it more exhalation than pain.

And the Domina nodded, as if to say, well done.

Huathe repeated the sea water bathing several times and then he dried her with a soft cloth. The Domina reached into her pack and produced a clean white shift of fine linen, which Huathe dropped over Joanna’s head. On top of that went the red embroidered tunic of Joanna’s vision; in reality it was even more beautiful because, as well as feasting on it with her eyes, she could also touch the heavy gold embroidery and smell the sweet scent of new cloth. Over the tunic Huathe draped the speckled woollen cloak, fastening it with a gold pin in the shape of a stylised running horse. The cloak was heavy and warm and, at last, Joanna stopped shivering.

Finally the Domina gave her the short, thick stick. ‘This is hawthorn,’ she said, ‘and hawthorn protects from both physical and psychic harm; it will protect you and also those upon whom you wield its power. The wood was gathered on the most auspicious day of the year and the wand has been prepared especially for you.’ Pointing to the brownish-grey crystal embedded in the end of the stick, she continued, ‘This is Caledonian quartz and it is sacred to us. Use it wisely, child.’

She put the wand into Joanna’s outstretched hand. Not knowing what to expect, but anticipating something, Joanna was surprised to find that there was no jolt of energy, no force that made the hairs on her arms stand up. She might as easily have been holding a piece of driftwood.

She heard Huathe chuckle. ‘Do not worry, Beith,’ he said quietly, ‘for when you need the power, it will be there.’

The ceremony was over. Huathe carefully poured sand on the fire, extinguishing it and then burying the embers so that every trace disappeared. The Domina fastened her pack, saying to Joanna, ‘You may wear your finery for what remains of the night. Tomorrow, put it away and revert to anonymity.’

Joanna bowed her acceptance. Standing still barefoot on the sand, she wondered if it was permitted to put her boots on; the tide was coming in and the sand felt damp under her toes.

Huathe gave her a hug. ‘Farewell, Beith,’ he said. ‘We shall meet again, but it may not be for many years.’ He bent and kissed her, twice on each cheek, then, with a low reverence to the Domina, hastened away towards the cliff path. Joanna, who had by his action received the confirmation of what she already suspected — that she was leaving Armorica — looked expectantly at the Domina.

‘Aye, child, you and your daughter are to sail this night back to Britain. The ship will be here soon. But, before you go, I would speak with you on a matter that has been kept from you.’

Several possibilities flashed through Joanna’s mind. When the Domina spoke, it was concerning none of them. Instead she said, ‘Have you not asked yourself why it is that you have been accepted into the tribe?’

Immediately Joanna was reminded of many small moments and incidents; of all the times that her new people had spoken of her as one of them; of the growing sense that they had all known about her long, long before she had been aware of them. She said, ‘Yes. I have.’

‘It is time,’ the Domina said heavily, ‘for you to be told.’

What she learned on the shore that night was such a shock that, when the small boat came grinding up the shingle to carry her and Meggie out to the ship that awaited them, Joanna could barely walk by herself and had to be helped by the two sailors. She felt weak and did not trust herself to take adequate care of Meggie, and the Domina entrusted the child to the sailor who was not engaged in rowing the boat. Joanna heard her daughter give a little cry of protest, but even that could not restore her. The Domina stood on the shore watching as the boat set off towards the ship; she might have been waving, but Joanna did not notice.

What she had just been told had removed, in a few words, everything that she had believed herself to be. The fact of that former identity having been replaced by something far more interesting, and with many times the potential, she managed, for the time being anyway, totally to overlook. .

The ship took her to a place the sailors called Ellan Vannin; the island, set in the seas between England and Ireland to the north of Mona’s Isle, was to be her home until Imbolc. Still in a daze even after four days at sea, Joanna meekly followed the orders that anyone chanced to give her, going ashore into yet another new place and settling into what in fact seemed like better accommodation than she had enjoyed before. Sometimes she would hold on to the bear’s claw on its chain around her neck, as if that alone had the power to reassure her that it was true, not a dream or the last fling of the wonder voyage she had taken on that Armorican beach.

In time she accepted the truth. As if they had been waiting for that moment, her new teachers set about the most intensive period of study that she had ever had, instilling into her that she had gifts but they had no virtue and no purpose if she did not learn to use them. Building on what she had learned at Folle-Pensee, they showed her how to make the soul journey into the heart and mind of another, how to seek out whatever malady might lie there and how to cure it. When Samhain came round, the combined effects of her mysterious studies and her exhaustion meant that she was very close to what lay the other side of the veil. Too close, in fact; her teachers, afraid that she would be tempted to raise the veil and venture beyond, would not let her attend the festival. ‘Wait until next year,’ they said kindly, seeing her bitter disappointment, ‘next year you will be strong and the danger will be less.’

She was allowed — encouraged — to celebrate Meggie’s first birthday on the last day of October. But on Samhain night they gave her a strong sedative and she slept, deeply and dreamlessly, into the month of November.

Yule passed. Joanna worked harder and harder, knowing, for all that she had not been told, that she would soon be leaving. In the New Year they sent her back to Mona’s Isle, where she was received joyfully — and, it had to be said, with a certain amount of awe — by the friends she had made there. She celebrated Imbolc with her people there and then, a few days afterwards, the man with the gold earring came for her again and rowed her back to the mainland.

She knew what she had to do, for there had been so many hints that she had taken matters into her own hands and used her scrying bowl. As she trod the long road back to Hawkenlye Forest and her little hut, she was already building her mental strength for what lay ahead.