Irresistible Forces

He reached out to touch her, to put his hand upon her shoulder, but found such resistance in the air that he could not. His hand stopped short of her body, unable to go farther. 'Marian?'

'I hear them,' she said.

Robin heard nothing.

She drew in a breath. 'Their souls are still here.'

'Whose souls?'

'The women — the women who lived here. Those who worshipped the goddess.' She closed her eyes then, intent upon something he could neither see nor hear. 'They knew peace here, in life and death. Not Christians, but reverent in their own way, following their faith.' She removed her hands and looked at him. 'Merlin was right: He could not come here. Nor do they wish you to be here.'

'And you?' he asked.

Marian smiled crookedly. 'I may or may not be descended from women who lived here in Merlin's day. The power has faded, but there is memory here. I will not be chased away.' She closed her eyes again. He could see the lids twitching as if she slept; her mouth moved slightly. The words she quoted were nothing he had ever heard, from her or anyone else.

'Marian?'

This time it was she who reached out to him. Resistance snapped. He felt her hand on his, smooth and warm, as she led him to the center of the hilltop.

'He is with me,' she said, and the world made way.

There were voices in her ears. Nothing she could make out, not words she understood, but voices, women's voices, calling out. Was it her help they desired or her absence? Marian could not tell what it was they wanted, merely that they existed, that they filled her mind with sound and her heart with yearning.

His hand was warm in hers, but she was barely conscious of it. She led him without hesitation to the center of the summit, to the place where stacked stone had tumbled into ruin, from graceful lines into disarray. Most were lichen-clad, moss-grown, buried in soil and ground cover. Some had cracked wide open, broken into bits by frost and sun. Nothing here resembled a place to live, but live they had. She could feel it in her bones, sense it singing in her blood.

'Here,' she said.

Robin stopped beside her. 'The grave?'

She turned her face up to the moon, squinting at its brilliance. 'No. The women worshipped here.'

He was silent. Marian sensed his unease. She turned to him, to reassure him that she was welcome here, that so long as he was her consort he would be tolerated — but she forgot the intention as something came down between them. A hissing line of light lanced out of the sky, so cold it burned. They broke apart and fell back, guarding their eyes. In the flash of illumination Marian saw Robin's drawn and hollowed face, the grimness in his mouth. The bared blade of his sword glinted in the darkness.

She was Christian-born and — bred, not a goddess-worshipper. But something within responded to the place. She, a woman, had a right to be here. None of the women of Avalon had ever turned away one of their own, though not all had remained. What remained of them would not turn her away. Still, she was uneasy.

Resistance, Merlin had said. Robin had spoken of unseen enemies and evil beings. Marian sensed neither here, merely the memories of women who had left the world of men to make their own way, to find their own faith. That memory could make itself tangible did not, somehow, strike her as unusual. Not here. Not this night. Nor that the souls of the women, tied to the stone and soil of Avalon, would be present still. They had not known a heaven such as Christians did. They had worshipped another way.

Blasphemy, the priests would say. Heresy. It was not Marian's way, but she could respect that women before her might seek another road. A woman's life was difficult, with or without a man.

Her man stood beside her.

Marian looked into his eyes. Blood yet ran down his jaw to drip upon his shoulder. She reached up, touched his face, felt the warmth of his flesh beneath the beard. Felt the stickiness of blood.

In her heart welled a strange, strong fierceness. We have come at Merlin's behest, she said within, not to disrupt, not to dishonor, but to set to rights what has been perverted. England — Britain — must prevail, but she cannot without your aid. Allow us to be the vessels of this aid. Let us have the sword.

A moment later, the answer was given.

Marian smiled. 'I know the way.'

His brows arched. 'To the grave?'

She gestured. 'Look.'

She waited for him to see it, to find it, to remark in satisfaction. But he did none of those things. He looked, but he was blind.

'Here.' She took his hand again, led him to the stone.

Beneath a scattering of dirt, encroached upon by ground cover, lay a flat, crude plinth of weathered stone half the length of Robin's height.

'This?' he asked. 'This is — nothing.'

The answer was immediate. 'If men knew Arthur slept here, they would come. And if they came, they would undoubtedly expect a monument to the king. But that is not what the women, or Avalon, wished. Only peace. And that they offered Arthur.'

He was dubious. 'How can you be certain this is his grave? Surely others have died here.'

She shrugged. 'I can give you no explanation. I just — know.' Because they have told me.

Robin closed his mouth on his next question and squatted down. He set aside his sword, then leaned forward. One hand went out to the stone, to touch its surface. He ran his fingers over the stone and stopped. His expression abruptly stilled.

'What is it?' Marian asked.

He traced the stone again, feeling more carefully this time. She saw the pattern: down the length of the stone, then across.

' Tis carved here,' Robin said. He motioned her to kneel down, then took her hand and pressed it across the stone. 'Do you feel it?'

Marian shook her head.

'Wait…' He guided her hand up, then down, then across. 'Do you feel it?'

She frowned. 'Some kind of carving, I agree. But I cannot make it out.'

Robin retrieved his sword from beside the stone and set it atop the pitted surface. And Marian understood.

She said, 'Merlin came out of the tree. Out of wood.'

Robin nodded. 'And this is stone.'

With the touch of our blood.

She stared at the sword as it lay atop the plinth. Then slowly she bent and took it into her hands. Her right she curled around the leather-wrapped grip. Her left she closed upon the blade, closed and closed, then slid it the length of the blade.

'Marian!' His hands were on hers, freeing the sword. He swore under his breath as he saw the blood flow.

'No,' she said as he searched hastily for something to stop the blood. 'Wait.' She reached up, touched the side of his head with its soggy strip of cloth, brought her other hand away. Carefully, she pressed both against the stone. In the wake of her touch, she left bloody handprints.

'Marian'

He caught her now, trapped her hands, wrapped around the left the cloth he had cut from his own tunic. She allowed it, watched his eyes as he tended her. In this moment he thought only of her, not of what they wrought atop Arthur's grave.

When he was done, she looked at the stone. 'There,' she told him.

Robin barely glanced at it, more concerned with her welfare. But when he looked again, his eyes widened.