Child of Flame
It is easy to find death in the world, but a greater magic by far to bring life. He was a life bringer.
He had come to her in late summer, and in the natural order of things the days and months had passed as the moon waxed and waned and waxed again. Autumn had worked free of summer, winter had cast her white blanket over the world, and in the course of time the Green Man lifted his head from his winter’s slumber. So it went, and so it would go on, long after she was gone from the Earth. Even knowing the fate that awaited her as the wheel of the year continued to turn, when the seasons rolled from spring into summer and at last to her final autumn, she was content.
The Holy One had chosen wisely.
Right now, however, the villagers waited.
She sang. “I pray to you, Green Man, let the seeds take root.” She turned to welcome the full moon, rising in the east. “I pray to you, Fat One, let the village prosper. Let your fullness be a sign of plenty in the year to come.”
Every villager had brought offerings, a posy of violets, a copper armband, flint axes, beads, arrowheads, and daggers. With the moon to light their way, they circled down the tumulus and followed the path that led to the marsh at the eastern limit of the hills. Adica knew the secret trail of firm tussocks that led through the marsh to the sacred island As the oldest uncrippled man in the village, Pur the stone knapper was given the honor of carrying in the offerings in her wake.
A fish jumped. The moon made silver of the water trembling through glittering beds of reeds and around grassy hummocks. The wind brought the scent of the cook fires from the village, and the smell of roasting pig.
When she was done with the prayers, she and Pur cast the offerings into the marsh, as they did every year at the festival of spring, a sacrifice for a good year.
After that, she was through with being the antlered woman, the crossing-over one who can speak both to humankind and to the gods, to made things and to wild things. Pur moved away so as not to see anything forbidden, and with the prayers and spells she knew best, she became Adica again, putting away her regalia in its leather bag.
As they made their way back, water squelched and sucked beneath her feet on the lowest hummocks, half drowned in the marsh. A water snake glided away over the quiet water. Pond weed edged the marsh. Within the sheltering darkness, she overheard the conversation of those waiting for her return.
“Of course they will attack.” Kel always sounded as if he had fire burning under his feet. “They hate us.”
“Why? Can there not be trading and talk? Why can there only be hate?”
Alain was always full of questions about things that seemed obvious to everyone else. The wind blew a light stalk of reed against her face, then away. Pur shifted behind her, but she didn’t move. Wherever she walked, people marked where she was. Rarely did she have a chance to overhear when people spoke words unshaped by their concern about what she might hear.