Scorpion Rising

Thirty

Once words are written down, they become frozen, Beth had said, and once something freezes it dies.

But like nature and the seasons, change is as inevitable as it is anticipated, and in the way that an acorn grows into an oak or a tadpole turns into a frog, so she understood that the Hundred-Handed must also change, or the order would die.

It had taken tragedy upon tragedy for her to see this, but as she sat at the birth point on the pentagram table, cradling her swollen bruised jaw, she understood that her role went beyond simply overseeing the propitious start of new years and new lives. It was to encourage the birth of new ideas.

She had been wrong to suppress the truth about Clytie. The pentagram priestesses had known almost from the start that she had killed herself on that rock. The heavy-handed, almost clownish cosmetics on her face smacked of a child's handiwork, and the arrangement of her body revealed an innocence which no copycat killer would have thought of. She had immediately instituted a search and found a stick in which Clytie had notched her reasons for killing herself, a stick so thin that it had blown into the bushes in the wind. But a stick nonetheless. And for their sins, the pentagram covered it up.

They agreed that by keeping it quiet, the tragedy would blow over, and agreed with the Death Priestess that no blame should be attached to the three little conspirators for moving her body.

The pentagram priestesses were wrong.

We are all of us accountable for our actions, Beth thought, even a twelve-year-old child, and it matters not a jot whether that decision is wrong or it's right, that decision is not ours. It was Clytie's. She should at least have told Gabali the truth when he came searching for answers, but she remembered the fierce love he'd held for Mavor and the passion she'd shared with him, and equally the passion of unrequited love that beat in the heart of Fearn. Better, the pentagram priestesses agreed, that Gabali was fobbed off and the quicker Mavor would get over him. Once again, they miscalculated.

Gabali's instincts as a father would not let it go. His capacity to love was too strong.

Whereas Beth's own instincts had failed her on every level…

She had listened to Fearn — who abused her authority as one of the pentagram in an effort to split Gabali from Mavor, even at the expense of the death of her own child — without delving deeper into Fearn's reasons.

She'd allowed herself to be swayed by Ailm, who single-handedly insisted that Vanessia, Aridella and Lin should not be punished, instead of asking herself why Ailm, who systematically refused to cast a deciding vote, should fight so vehemently on this one particular issue.

Then there was the notched stick, which she found by her bed. Labelling her a cheat and a liar, it insinuated that she'd manipulated the previous Head of the College when she was dying in order to gain her promotion. Beth knew there was only one person who would think such a thing, but instead of confronting Ailm or enquiring whether she'd sent similar poison to others, she'd shrugged it off. Kind or spiteful, all words are simply breath, she had argued, and breath is gone with the wind.

So many mistakes, she reflected, balling her hands into fists. So many mistakes when she'd defied her own instincts to listen to others, believing their hearts were pure when they were not, and even her instincts as a mother had failed her. She closed her eyes. How little she imagined twenty-seven years ago, when she begged that Ptian be sold to family close by that she might keep an eye on him as he grew up, the poison that would brew in his heart. Stories filtered back of bullying other children and tormenting cats, but this was a phase, she convinced herself. He'd grow out of it. Instead he moved to wife-beating, child abuse, drunkenness and worse, but rather than face the fact that Ptian was violent by nature, she used her influence to tip the balance in being shunned by his people. Isolation would teach him humility and contrition, she thought. Instead, he was on the verge of unleashing unimaginable horrors.

But. She sighed. Ptian was dead and his corroded soul fed to the dragon.

Now what?

Placing her hands flat on the table, Beth opened her eyes and stared not at Luisa and Dora, but at the two empty chairs either side of her. It had taken the very brink of slaughter and bloodshed for her to come to her senses. Crisis had cleared her mind.

She regretted it had taken Clytie's suicide, Sarra's murder and the death of her own son before she finally understood what she'd been born for. To lead. To lead the HundredHanded not through the daily routines and the seasons, but the changes life itself brings.

Instate a fairer ballot, Ailm had snapped when asked to cast the deciding vote on the issue of witchcraft.

Fair? With the shocking events in the past twenty-four hours, Beth no longer understood the meaning of fair. But she did understand that, instead of casting three votes at the pentagram, she needed to change the law. From now on the Head of the College would still guide the proceedings, but hers would be the final vote. Hers and hers alone.

So even though Oak and Rowan were in favour of expelling Yew from the Hundred-Handed, when they felt Gorse should keep her place, Beth used her powers for the first time.

'Fearn had allowed personal issues to dictate College matters,' she argued. 'Such an abuse could not be tolerated. And the three girls must be punished for the sin they'd committed.'

Yes, of course, they were scared, but they were scared for themselves not for Clytie, who had killed herself on the stone where they played. Worse, they gave no thought to the consequences of someone else having the shock of finding her body, much less the potential ravages of animals or the fear that would be unleashed at the prospect of a vicious killer on the loose. Children or not, rightly or wrongly, fair or unjust, those girls bore as much culpability as Ailm in the matter of Clytie's suicide.

We must show strength by believing in ourselves and standing by our convictions, Beth had told Claudia down in the cavern.

Whatever the cost?

How well she remembered the lead in her heart as she finally gave her reply. Yes, she had said. Whatever the cost.

And now she understood that, whether written or spoken, words don't freeze and die. They burn in the memory for eternity, and let the Druids keep up their symbols of notches on wood. The keys of wisdom, as they were called. The sun was setting on the day of the Druids, and whether the Hundred-Handed would survive for another three centuries or just another three years, so long as people continued to flock to them for spiritual guidance, that guidance would continue to be in line with nature.

And thus change.

'Step forward, Mavor,' she called aloud.

Two initiates would take the vacant places at the table tomorrow, but right now, this was business that could not wait. The door to the Voting Hall opened with a slight creak, and candlelight bounced off her wild auburn curls.

'There are those among us who are pushing for marriage among our order,' Beth said. 'But I cannot allow this in our College.'

'Hear, hear,' Dora boomed.

'However.' Beth took care to look only at Mavor. 'We know you have been meeting Gabali, when you are well aware that he was forbidden from entering our sacred grounds. We know that he asked you to hide the rope that would help the victim escape from the Pit of Reflection, even though you were not happy to do so. We know, moreover, that he asked you to hide it in Swarbric's hut, where you and he have been conducting your illegal assignations. And-'

She glanced at the space where Fearn should have been sitting. Love, she thought sadly. Love had so much to answer for…

'- and we know that you are pregnant.'

Mavor went white. 'How?'

'My dear, we have all had children,' Dora said gently. 'The signs are as plain as the clouds in the sky.'

'You do understand that Gabali must leave and that if he sets foot on this land again, he will be thrown into the Pit?'

'Which this time will be guarded,' Luisa added.

'However,' Beth said, before Mavor could speak, 'the Hundred-Handed have decided' — her smile was thin — 'if any of our order is not happy and wishes to leave, she is free to do so.'

Left unchecked, change could gallop out of control. Her job was to hold the reins and see that it advanced one pace at a time.

'These are the rules laid down by the pentagram: that any among us, priestess or initiate, may leave on condition she swears an oath never to speak of this College again, and on the strict understanding that she can never come back.'

For a beat of three only emotion pulsed between them, then Beth cleared her throat.

'Do you stay or do you go?'

Tears flowed down Mavor's cheeks and her shoulders heaved. 'Beth, I love this place with all my heart, you know that, and I love the work that I do, but it is not enough.'

'With Gabali do you think it will be enough?'

'I don't know, but I'm willing to try, and perhaps with a child

…' Her words trailed off. 'Thank you, thank you all so very much — oh, but what about Swarbric? Please don't punish him for my sins, I beg you.'

'We will not,' Dora said crisply. 'We have graver issues to discuss with that young man. Kindly send him in as you leave.'

Still handsome, still confident, despite the mop of sodden grey hair and dripping pantaloons, Swarbric swaggered into the hall, his thumb hooked in his belt adjacent to the empty scabbard where his dagger should have been. Disarmed, but never disarming, Beth thought.

'Ladies.'

He bowed low.

Beth wasted no time.

'Swarbric, forgetting for a moment your complicity in an affair between a priestess and a male who was forbidden to set foot on our sacred ground again, you forsook your trust as Guardian of the Sacred Gate.'

She paused, but he made no attempt to apologize or explain.

'And even though it was to save two foolish lovers who didn't need saving and that, having found the fishing boat tied up next to a hut in which Pod was recovering from a fever, you returned to your post of your own free will, the pentagram is still of the opinion that we should strip you of your special privileges. How do you answer?'

There was a twinkle in his eye as he flashed his famous disarming grin.

'Ladies,' he breathed, advancing towards the table, 'I think you should just strip me and see what happens next.'

Despite themselves, the pentagram burst out laughing.

'You are incorrigible, Swarbric,' Dora spluttered.

'Which of course is why we all love you,' Luisa chuckled.

It was left to Beth — naturally — to pass sentence on the deserter. Outside, thunder rolled and rain drummed on the heavy thatched roof. The storm which had been building all day was spilling its anger on Gaul. Her sigh came from the heart.

'Oh, for pity's sake, Swarbric. Get back to your post, before I find myself promoting you.'