Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [18]
“We’d better bury those Boars, my lady. We can’t leave that for the holy ladies.”
“True enough. Huh. I wonder what the high priestess is going to say about this. Well, that’s for me to worry about, not you. My thanks for rescuing me.”
At that he smiled, just a little twist of his mouth, then hurried off after the others.
Although Ardda was not pleased to have four men slain at her gates, she was resigned, even remarking that perhaps the Goddess was punishing the Boars’ impiety in the matter.
“No doubt,” Gweniver said. “Because it was She who killed that one lad. I was naught but a sword in Her hands.”
Ardda looked at her sharply. They were sitting in her study, a spare stone room with a shelf of six holy books on one wall and a table littered with temple accounts on the other. Even now, with her decision coming clear in her mind, Gweniver debated. Once her highest ambition had been to be high priestess here herself and to have this study for her own.
“All afternoon I’ve been praying to Her,” Gweniver went on. “I’m going to leave you, my lady. I’m going to swear to the Moon and turn the clan over to Macla. Then I’m going to take my men and go to Cerrmor and lay the Wolf’s petition before the king. Once I have the tattoo, the Boar will have no reason to harm me.”
“Just so, but it’s still dangerous. I hate to think of you out on the roads these days with just three riders for an escort. Who knows what men will do these days, even to a priestess?”
“Not just three, my lady. I’m the fourth.”
Ardda went still, crouched in her chair as she began to pick up Gweniver’s meaning.
“Don’t you remember telling me about the fourth face of the Goddess?” Gweniver went on. “Her dark side, when the moon turns bloody and black, the mother who eats her own children.”
“Gwen. Not that.”
“That.” With a toss of her head, she rose to pace about the chamber. “I’m going to take my men and join the war. It’s been too long since a Moon-sworn warrior fought in Deverry.”
“You’ll be killed.” Ardda got to her feet. “I shan’t allow it.”
“Is it for either of us to allow or disallow if the Goddess calls me? I felt Her hands on me today.”
Their eyes met, they locked stares in a battle of will. When Ardda looked away first, Gweniver realized that she was no longer a child, but a woman.
“There are ways to test such inspirations,” Ardda said at last. “Come into the temple tonight. If the Goddess grants you a vision, it’s not for me to say you nay. But if She doesn’t—”
“I’ll be guided by your wisdom in the matter.”
“Very well, then. And what if She grants you a vision, but not the one you think you want?”
“Then I’ll swear to Her anyway. The time has come, my lady. I want to hear the secret name of the Goddess and make my vow.”
In preparation for the ceremony, Gweniver fasted that evening. While the temple was at its dinner, she fetched water from the well and heated herself a bath by the kitchen hearth. As she was dressing afterward, she paused to look at her brother’s shirt, which she’d embroidered for him the year before. On each yoke, worked in red, was the striding wolf of the clan, surrounded by a band of interlacement. The pattern twined so cleverly around itself that it looked like a chain of knots made up of many strands, but in fact there was only one line to it, and each knot flowed inevitably into the next. My Wyrd’s just such a tangle, she told herself, all chained round.
And with the thought came a cold feeling, as if she had spoken better than she could know. As she finished dressing, she was frightened. It was not that perhaps she might die in battle; she knew that she would be slain, maybe soon, maybe many years hence. It was the way of the Dark Goddess, to call upon her priestesses to make the last sacrifice when She decided the time had come. When Gweniver picked up the sword belt, she hesitated, half tempted to throw it to the floor; then she buckled it on and strode out of the room.
The round wooden temple stood in the