Lady of the Moon

Lady of the Moon

Mary Gillgannon

EBook published by Mary Gillgannon at Smashwords, 2012

Copyright Mary Gillgannon, 2012

Cover art by Rae Monet

EBook design by A Thirsty Mind

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Preview: The Raven of Death

Titles

Mary Gillgannon

Chapter 1

Northwest Wales

57 C.E.

Sirona’s heartbeat quickened as she and the two other young women followed the Drui into the darkened forest. The wind murmured in the high branches of the huge oak and beech trees, seeming to whisper of ominous secrets, and the faintly sweet scent rising up from the soft ground beneath her feet seemed to bear the odor of death. She told herself she shouldn’t feel so apprehensive. This should be a night of celebration, marking her passage from childhood to womanhood. But she couldn’t seem to banish the gnawing anxiety in her stomach.

In the bright moonlight, she began to recognize familiar landmarks: The copse where she’d gathered beechnuts the previous fall. An old gnarled oak, the top blackened by lightning three sunseasons ago. A thicket of blackthorn, the berries just barely beginning to form. All at once, she knew where they were going. They were headed straight for the Lake of the Dead.

It wasn’t much of a lake anymore. Shallow and more marsh than open water. Yet she’d heard it was once deep and clear, teeming with fish. She’d also heard more than a few chilling tales about the fens and the malevolent spirits that dwelled there, the lingering essences of those poor unfortunates who’d died badly and hadn’t been able to cross over to the Other Side.

She and her fellow students of the grove, Cruthin and Bryn, scoffing at the stories, had come here several times over the past few sunseasons. But it was always during the day, when the moist air was clouded with insects and bright copper butterflies fluttered among the bulrushes and water dock. It was different at night, when the mist floated along the ground and everything was reduced to shadows and shapes. Again, Sirona felt a chill of foreboding trace along her spine.

The Drui halted in an open area among the maze of weeds and bushes, close to a pool of water that reflected the glowing silver disc of the moon. Fiach, the head Drui, motioned for the three young women to come forward. With his long arms and tall upright form, he reminded Sirona of a bird of prey. He spoke in his sonorous voice: We come here this night to welcome Enat, Cailin and Sirona to their new lives as women. We ask the gods to protect them, to make them fertile and to give them long lives. We ask this in the name of Rhiannon, Ceridwen and Arianhrod, protectors of women and givers of life.

He made a graceful motion with his hand, then gestured to Cailin. Give me what you have brought to sacrifice.

Cailin handed him a silver brooch shaped like a deer. Fiach intoned, She offers this gift that the gods might be pleased and know her as a devoted and faithful woman, one who gives proper reverence to the gods of three realms: the underworld of the deep, the realm of the sky and the realm of this earth. He motioned to indicate the three domains, then threw the brooch into the water where it landed with a splash.

Fiach repeated the ceremony with Enat, whose offering was an enamel necklace. When it was Sirona’s turn, she took off the gold torc, which had come from the chest holding her mother’s things at the back of the hut she shared with her grandmother. The torc was fashioned of intertwined snakes, their eyes set with glowing red garnets. It had an eerie, seductive beauty and a part of Sirona didn’t want to give up. She quickly quelled the blasphemous thought and handed the piece to Fiach. He cast it into the water and repeated the ceremonial words.

Sirona thought they were finished, but then she looked at Fiach and saw he held a small, curved knife in his hand. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to the water. Sirona, daughter of Banon, he said. You will die this night.

Her breathing quickened, even though she told herself she was being ridiculous. Fiach wasn’t going to kill her.

The head Drui continued, "As a child, you will die this night... to be reborn as a woman. He took the knife and carefully nicked her wrist, making a few drops of blood well up. Then he shook her arm so the blood fell into the dark water. Sirona the child is gone, consigned to the depths of this pool. In her place arises Sirona, the woman." He took a strip of cloth from Cuill and rapidly bound up her wrist.

Fiach repeated the blood-letting with Cailin and Enat, then said to the three of them, I want each of you to go off by yourself and pray to the gods, asking them for the things you wish for in your life as a woman. Think carefully about these things, for this night you are in the shadowland between two worlds and the gods are close. They will listen and remember.

Sirona dutifully started walking in the direction Fiach had indicated. Her heart was pounding even faster now, but she told herself not to be such a coward. As a student of the grove, she knew the importance of this part of the ritual. She and the other women were being tested, just as the young men of the tribe were tested when they spent the night alone in the forest during their man-making.

She took a deep breath, aware of the throbbing pain in her wrist. Pain, like the pain she would endure during childbirth. Blood, like the blood that had seeped from her body during her first moontime, marking her as a fertile woman. And now she was alone, severed from the safety and protection she’d known as a child. With her training to be a Learned One, she could see the meaning in the ceremony, the pattern it evoked. But for all she told herself she should be pleased and honored to have reached this place, she couldn’t shake the sense that something awful was going to happen.

She tried to focus on the gods and her future. What did other young women ask for? Fertility? A long life? That a certain man they favored might ask them to handfast? She wasn’t concerned with any of those things. All she desired was to continue to train in the grove. To be one of the Learned Ones and take her place as a valued member of the tribe. But it didn’t seem like something she should have to ask the gods for. She was already training in the grove. Although Fiach might not be pleased about it, and some of her fellow students questioned whether a woman should be a Drui, that part of her future seemed assured.

Perhaps she wasn’t meant to ask the gods for anything, but to seek out their will for her. Ogimos always said that if a person could quiet their own thoughts and still the wild rush of words and images, the gods’ spirit would enter them. Take deep, even breaths, he said. Relax your body, let your limbs grow heavy and your mind become empty and still. Imagine yourself as one of the great oaks, a tree that has stood for generations, alive, but quiet and waiting, enduring as the seasons pass in their endless cycle, the rhythm of life and death.

An oak. She would be an oak. She felt the sap rise through her solid, inert body, rise and fall as the seasons passed. New leaves, the budding catkins turning into acorns, falling to the ground and sprouting new life beneath her branches. The moon shone down upon her, waxing and waning. Around her, the forest changed, green and lush in summer, gold and copper and brown in the fall, bleak and gray in winter. The creatures of the wood shared her branches, the hollows of her trunk. Birds and squirrels and insects, their lives dependent upon hers. She was part of the forest, all the trees and vines and grasses and ferns and mosses that drew nourishment from the earth.

And in the earth beneath, she could feel the ancient power from which all life sprang. Earth, water, air and sunshine. These were the things that fed her. These were the gods of the oak. And of all creatures.

At last she felt peaceful and content. She opened her eyes, relieved she had been able to make herself reach a state of mind appropriate to this important event. She was a woman now, and must seek to be wise and calm and knowing, like her grandmother Nesta. Like the oak. Someday she would be full Drui and pass on her knowledge and the ancient, sacred cycle could continue.

She glanced around, wondering how long it would be before the three Drui returned and escorted her and the other girls back to the dun. They might not come back until morning. She considered sitting down on the grass to wait, but even as she had the thought, a light across the water caught her eye. There was another light... and another. Had the Drui lit torches to show them the way back to the settlement? But why, when they’d traveled here with no more illumination than the moon? Then she saw another glowing point, making four, and knew it couldn’t be Fiach and others. But who else would come to the lake of the dead at night?

The lights moved closer. Drawing near to the water’s edge, she strained to see. There was a group of people, a surprising number of people. Had the entire tribe come here to watch the woman-making ceremony? But if that were part of the ritual, she would know of it. Besides, the ceremony was over. Perhaps the dun had been attacked. But why not send a messenger? Certainly all these people wouldn’t come to fetch them.

Yet there was undeniably a crowd gathered on the other side of the lake. And a lake it was now. There was much more open water here than she’d guessed. Why it had seemed like a small pool previously, she couldn’t imagine. She decided to walk around the lake and see what was happening. If she watched where she was going, she would be in no danger of sinking into some hidden morass.

As she began walking, she realized she’d been mistaken. What she’d thought was the other side of the lake was really an island in the middle of it. That’s where the people with torches were gathered. She was almost close enough to see the people, but she didn’t recognize anyone. It must be the shifting shadows of the torchlight. Then she saw three figures dressed in white crys marked with the sacred colors of red and green. Ah, there were Fiach, Cuill and Flann after all.

Sirona pushed her way through the underbrush, trying to find a better vantage point from which to see. When she looked up again, she froze in place, her mouth open in a silent gasp. The three Drui encircled a young, naked woman, her small breasts clearly visible. The woman’s scalp had been shorn, the hair cut so short that her scalp showed through the stubble, and her hands were bound behind her. As Sirona watched, one of the Drui—it must be Fiach—grabbed the woman’s head and jerked it back, exposing her throat.

No! Sirona cried out. Fiach didn’t move, didn’t look across the water to see who had shouted. No! she screamed again, louder this time. None of the people gathered on the island seemed to hear her. Puzzled, Sirona tried once more. Fiach! she yelled at the top of her lungs. Fiach! Stop!

There was no response. In the name of the gods, stop! Sirona cried. She desperately wanted to prevent the Drui from killing this woman. But there was nothing she could do.

Fiach made a quick motion with the knife and dark blood welled from the young woman’s neck. Sirona let out a moan, then stiffened as another Drui stepped forward. He didn’t look like Cuill or Flann. There was something in his hand. A small rope or thong. Sirona watched in horror as he wrapped it around the woman’s neck and pulled it tight. The woman’s body jerked and flailed. The third Drui came forward to grab the woman’s hands and hold her still. Sirona closed her eyes. She didn’t want to watch. To see this woman die, choking to death.

When she opened her eyes, the first Drui—who she now realized wasn’t Fiach—had released the woman, but the other man held her limp body so she didn’t fall. Her head lolled to one side and blood flowed freely down her body. The two Drui took hold of the woman’s arms and the three men threw her into the lake. She sank rapidly, so rapidly that Sirona realized they must have weighted her feet with something.

Sirona experienced a sense of panic. She felt as if she’d watched something forbidden. Her heart began to race as she thought about what might happen if she were discovered. She turned and began to run. But the ground was much wetter now and she sank into the mud up to her knees. She knew a moment of dread before she could free herself. After that, she watched where she was going, grimly keeping her gaze fixed on the ground and taking care with every step.

When she finally paused and looked around, she was shocked to realize the edge of the fens was still some distance away. Her distress grew more intense. She didn’t want to remain in this place with the spirits of the dead, those who couldn’t cross over. The girl who’d been sacrificed was one of them. She’d done something awful and been punished terribly. Now she was trapped here.

Nearly hysterical, Sirona began moving again. Her skin was slick with sweat. She stank of the swamp and her long gown was wet and muddy. The wound on her wrist throbbed and ached. But nothing was as awful as the thought that she might wander aimlessly in the marsh until she eventually collapsed and sank into the muck. Her body might lie there for days, until it was picked clean by birds and water creatures.

In her despair, she grew careless and lost her footing, pitching forward onto her hands and knees. As she caught her breath, she noticed the reflection of the moon in the small pool of water in front of her. Slowly, she raised her gaze to the heavens and stared at the silvery orb. Arianrhod, Great Goddess, show me the way. Tell me what to do.

A sense of peace came over Sirona and she felt her body relax. She got to her feet and wiped her hands on her gown. Although she was covered with mud, she was unhurt.

She started forward and quickly reached solid ground. Pausing, she glanced back at the marsh. There was really nothing so frightening in this place. The sacrifice she’d seen hadn’t been real. It was a dream of some kind. Or a vision.

The thought filled