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.