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Three new babes had died before Cybele had been able to close the Hall of Kore. She did not blame the lay wet-nurses for the deaths. In fact, it was lucky that they had not been killed themselves in the fire. They had run from the burning hut with as many of their small charges as they were able, but the burning thatch of the roof had prevented their return for those last three wailing babes. One of the nurses swore that she had seen a single hooded figure disappearing into the night when she ran from the building. A swift young figure, she had described, probably female. Yes, definitely female, thought Cybele. No man would follow such a ruthless Goddess. She believed Cabirius's theory now that Cerridwen's supporters were trying to slowly strangle the Isle by killing off an entire new generation. Ioin's death made little sense, but Arithea, Annia and now these small babes - the intention was to have burned all in the Hall of Kore. A generation could have been erased. Cybele had intended to close the Hall anyway. Times were changing, and laywomen and even Priestesses were becoming reluctant to surrender their newborns to the Temple. After this tragedy, it would have been impossible. She had no real desire to care for the child that was now swelling in her own womb, but she could understand that others did have such a wish. Attis seemed to be far more concerned about the forming child. She did not understand why. She had told him of her coupling with Cabirius, and that she was not even sure that it was Attis's child, but he had only smiled at her benevolently, and assured her that it was his own. He lived with her openly now, as both Consort and earthly lover. Cybele had not resisted the tide of pairbonding which had swept the Isle. Small huts were being built all over the Isle as Priest took lover and lived as husband-and-wife. She had not asked Attis to move into her hut, but she had not ever asked him to leave, either. She was two seasons pregnant now, and felt ugly and fat, like a waddling seabird. Attis still seemed to find her beautiful. He forever fondled her swollen belly, and when they were in bed, he kissed it as though it were the most erotic and attractive thing. No, she simply could not understand it. He even spoke to her belly, calling it by the name "Brigit" as though it were already a person. The burning of the Hall of Kore had been the last death-knell to the traditional ways of the Isle. Cybele could no longer expect mothers to surrender their children, nor fathers to leave them unprotected. The move to small family units from the communal Halls was therefore inevitable. With the winter storms, Cerridwen became ever more active. The feeling on the Isle was one of open hostility, even war. The only barrier was that the enemy was unseen. Not one person had been shown to be for the Crone, despite a long and protracted Trial and vigilant searching for evidence. A watch was now maintained at the stone ring in the forest, but nomatter how closely it was tended, fresh blood appeared on the stones, as though it welled from the very ground. Ravens gathered in the trees above Cerridwen's Ring, as though keeping watch on the watchers. Perhaps it was they who wove some spell to distract the guard for long enough for a lamb's throat to be cut. Cybele and Attis took their turn to watch the Ring in the most ferocious storms, for it was then that the Crone was at her strongest and most craved blood. They never saw anything more than blurred shadows in the trees, though, even when there were great pools of blood mixing with the puddles from the rain when the storm abated. "Damned bitch-magick!" Attis cursed as they stood beside the largest stone, set flat in the grass in the middle of the ring. They had watched this very spot for an hour or more, having taken over watch from Ria and Dreeana. "I cannot understand it," he fumed, "that we could be so entranced by some stupid spell that this could happen before our very eyes!" "We are only human, Attis, and no more immune to charms than any other," she soothed. "Then perhaps it is time we fought magick with magick. Jenna said that she would help us against the Crone, I think it is time to call upon her powers." "You trust her that much?" Cybele said doubtfully. "It is not a matter of trust, we have little option." "Is she not just as likely to take the opportunity to poison you? Do not let the fact that we share an enemy make you mistake her as friend." "You know that she could have done so already a hundred times. And it is not I who has called her friend." "That was long ago, Attis, and I was no more than a child." "Well, let us hope this child takes more care in choosing her friends," he said, putting his hands protectively on her pregnant belly. She pulled as close to him as she was able. "Spring is not far away, my love. Look, there are the first peeping flowers," she said, pointing at some bulbs nudging from beneath a tree. "She will be born in the Spring." "Yes, Brigit will come in the Spring. I can even tell you the day of her birth," he said with some hint of sadness. "How so? Have you seen it so clearly?" Cybele asked. Attis's visions seemed quite natural to her now. "Yes. It will be at Hilaria, and I will be the Fool." Cybele wondered what he meant. Hilaria, the great Spring Festival, always featured one of the Priests, smeared in mulberry and herb, led through the villages naked. He would be called Green George, or the Fool, and was allowed to have and do whatever he pleased for that one day. At sunset, however, he would be bound and playfully whipped by the Novices, with canes of new willow. That night, huge fires would be lit, and everyone on the Isle would participate in the revelry and abandonment to lust. Surely Attis did not mean to offer himself for such a role. He seemed the very least likely candidate for Fool. He had begun to walk away from the clearing, and Cybele called to him. "Should we not wait for our replacement watch?" she asked. "Why?" he said bitterly. "Have they better eyes than we? Beside, the deed has been done for today, there will be no more sacrifice until the next storm now." High above, a single raven cried its harsh mocking laughter at them. "Bitch!" Attis shouted back to it, then turned on his heel and strode away. Cybele felt that she should wait until another arrived, even though she knew Attis was probably right. She had no desire to accompany him to Jenna's hut anyways, particularly to discuss sorcery. She had no taste for or even tolerance of magick. Attis had often said to her that it is best to "know thine enemy" but she preferred to leave the politics to Cabirius and the unseen to Attis. Her vision of the Goddess was one of openness and light, and she had no wish to dwell on the darker aspects. She sat back in the small byre which had been constructed beside the clearing and waited. Attis had gone straight to Jenna's hut. As a Healer, she had her own private hut, full of dried herbs and simmering potions. He stopped outside the heavy curtain, and called a cold greeting. "Healer?" There was no immediate answer, but when he called a second time in a more demanding tone, Jenna's voice replied. "Can you not come back later, Consort?" "No. I will wait for you now. Your sick pleasures cannot take too long, surely?" he said contemptuously. "You are the son of a stoat, Attis!" she cursed him. He smiled to himself, and pulled back the curtain. A young Unsworn Priestess lay on the bed and hurriedly pulled the covers over her naked body. Jenna, fully clad and standing beside the bed, turned furiously to face him, with a thick wooden phallus in her one hand. "Have you no respect for privacy?" she hissed at him. "I? Who must couple with my lover in sight of all each Full Moon? Why should I care for privacy?" he said indignantly, but with clear enjoyment of her discomfort. "Pah!" she spat. He crossed the small hut and picked up the girl's gown and threw it to her. "Why waste your time with a fake phallus, Fionna?" he said to her as she dressed. She gave no reply, and he expected none. Perhaps she was surprised that the Consort knew her name, but then he made it his business to know all inhabitants of the Isle. Within heatbeats, she was clad and had hurried from the hut with no word to her lover. Attis crossed to the abandoned bed beside Jenna and leaped onto it, easily as a cat, then sat cross-legged with his chin on his fists. "What do you want?" Jenna asked bitterly. He smiled his wide feline grin at her. "Your kind assistance, dear Healer." She spun around and crossed to the other side of the fire, as though to be as far from him as possible. She discarded the phallus and stirred a simmering pot over the fire. "I want a charm," he continued. "The great Priapus is failing, then? You would not be the first Consort to require such a thing," she said smugly. Attis laughed freely. "No, you foolish woman. You may well wish that my phallus will fail me, but it has yet offered me no such problem! It is a charm against enchantment that I seek." "Why should I help you?" she asked. "Because you swore you would help us against Cerridwen, and it is not too late for Kelle and Cabirius to speak out against you. I think very few people truly believe their tale of recovery and forgiveness, now that they live as husband and wife." "It is true that you have some hold over me in that regard," she agreed. "It was a foolish thing Thomias and I did, and cannot be undone. What enchantment do you seek protection against?" "When we watch over Cerridwen's Ring in a storm, some spell is cast over us that we do not see blood spilt in front of our very eyes," he explained. "Hmmm. The magick of Cerridwen's supporters is no girlhood dabbling. They have powerful spells that even I cannot see through. Think you I have not waited at the Ring myself to catch glimpse of them?" "So it is useless, then to try?" he asked. "It is the place as much as anything that causes the problem. Have you seen not their familiars watching overhead?" "The ravens? Yes. I thought as much." "If you could confront Cerridwen's followers in some other place, perhaps..." "How would we then know them to be her supporters? They are hardly likely to walk about announcing such an allegiance." "Perhaps you could trap them somehow. Well, for what it is worth, I shall give you a charm. It is my most powerful, but still may not be strong enough against their dark sorcery." She went to a small wooden box and took out an amulet on a piece of plaited thong. She tossed it to him and he caught it in one hand and held it up to the light of the fire. It was a piece of amber which shone a rich deep golden colour. Trapped deep within it was the twisted body of a mosquito. "A drinker of blood, like Cerridewn's spawn. Perhaps it will work after all. You must enter the lair to face a beast." "Do you not fear seduction by the dark strength of Cerridwen?" Jenna asked steadily. "She has tried to seduce me before, and I am strong enough to resist most things. But I do not deny that I was born with all three faces of the Goddess within me." "An unlikely thing for any man to be born with the Goddess within, but I know that you carry the mark. Yes, I have seen by the light of my fire a vision of you naked, the crescent curling around your nipple." "I know that the Crone cannot be allowed to flourish, though, and I will happily face my destiny to prevent it," he said without emotion. "Your destiny? Which is what?" Jenna asked curiously. "You are not the only one who has visions, Healer. Some would rather not see the future, but I am not afraid of my own death. It is merely the beginning of another life, is it not?" "So you may believe. My God allows no such chance, but sends a soul to Paradise or the nether world," she said without disputing his own belief. "And to which are you headed, Jenna?" he asked simply. She did not answer him, but smiled with resignation. He put the amulet around his neck, slipped it under his gown and climbed down from her high bed. "May it be a long way off, if it is the latter," he offered as he left the hut. The storm had cleared now, and the Winter sun was sharp and bright. He strode purposefully back through the forest, and could hear a cacophony of ravens calling raucous warnings high in the trees. He broke into a canter and burst into the clearing. The birds' calls stopped suddenly, unnaturally. He spun around and cried out his lover's name. "Cybele!" There was no answer, only eerie silence. Not so much as a rustle of branches or whistle of wind. It was as though time had stopped altogether. He realised that it was getting darker. Not the fading of the day, but something artificially sudden, like a cloud scuttling over the sun. But the clouds had all disappeared. He glanced briefly upward, and saw the sun directly above him being covered by the round shadow of the moon. He knew something was wrong, very wrong. He shouted with the full force of his strong lungs, "Cybele!" In the strange half-light, he saw a small movement beside the byre. It was Cybele. He rushed to her side and turned her over. She was covered in blood, but he knew this time not to jump to any conclusion that it was her own. He shook her violently and called her name. Her face was covered with blood, as though she had torn into a carcass like a predatory wolf. "By Ceres, wake up!" he commanded, and her eyes flickered briefly. He slapped her hard across the face. Still no response. He lifted her body in his arms. With her swollen belly, it was difficult, but he managed to cradle her enough to drag her away from the evil place and back to Jenna's hut. He burst back into the hut without so much as a call of warning, but when Jenna saw his mission, she offered no protest. "By the Goddess, what happened?" Jenna demanded. "So you forget your God at the sight of a little blood, then?" Attis said as he laid Cybele on Jenna's bed. She ignored him and rushed to the Chosen One's side, pulling up her eyelids and listening at her chest. She quickly crossed to a shelf and pulled several pots and jars down to make a potion. "Get me some hot water!" she ordered Attis. He did so compliantly and without further taunting. "Is it a spell?" Attis asked her. "Of a sort, and woven by one who knows well what they are doing. Foxglove, Wolfsbane, Mistletoe and probably a few others to make my finding an antidote a little more difficult." "Poison?!" he gaped. "But she would not be so foolish as to accept a drink for anyone but a most trusted friend." "Then she chooses her friends not well," Jenna said as she worked furiously on the potion, stirring adding to and shaking the brew. "I have said that to her before now," he said, realising the irony of the fact that the one who he had warned her against was now working to save her life. And the life of.. "Oh, the babe! By the Goddess, will it live?" he begged. "I know not yet if Cybele will live. Think yourself lucky if only the child is lost, for you can have another." It was no surprise that Jenna had never mothered a child. "You do not understand. Brigit is of more importance than any of us." Jenna ignored him completely, and crossed to Cybele. She appeared to have stopped breathing altogether, and Jenna put down the mug of medicine to lean over Cybele and breathe into her mouth, blocking her nose with her one hand. The trick worked, and Cybele suddenly gasped for a breath of her own accord. "Hold her up!" Jenna ordered. He climbed behind Cybele and held her up so that the Healer could pour the foul-smelling fluid into her mouth. She spluttered and coughed, but then started to speak. It was incoherent and rambling, and she struggled against them as though she were a wild animal trapped in a snare. "What is the blood from?" Attis asked Jenna as he held Cybele down with his strong arms. "How would I know? You found her. It looks to me like she has been feeding on some unlucky animal in the wood." "Why would she do such a thing?" he said, horrified. "It is possible that whoever poisoned her joined it with a spell to make her think herself wolf or fox or something of the sort. It is easily done when such a potion has been taken. She would not have been like this at first. Her strength would have been enormous and her mind as quick as the merlin. This is only the after-effect - it was meant to kill," she explained without tact. "Will the antidote work?" he demanded, as she writhed and struggled against him. "I cannot tell without knowing for certain what she was given. There could be any manner of poison there that I cannot detect, hidden behind those which I have recognised. As I told you, whoever did this knows well their craft." "Who would know such things?" Attis urged her. "Apart from myself, you mean?" she asked, the irony in her voice apparent. "Your friend Kelle. She trained under me as Healer when she was still a Novice." "No, not Kelle," Attis insisted. "There must be others." "Yes, of course. There have been many pupils through this hut over the years. But none have shown the talent of your friend Kelle." Jenna was interrupted by Cybele suddenly starting to convulse and froth from the mouth. Attis cried in anguish. Surely the child could not survive this, nor the mother. "Get her to the floor so that she will not injure herself," Jenna ordered. Attis clumsily lifted her from the bed, then stood back to let her ride out the convulsion. As it eased, Jenna fell to her side and poured another medicine into her mouth from a small bottle. "They have clearly tried to make sure that she dies," Jenna said to him. "She has been given a whole forest of poisons. But there is one advantage to that." "What possible advantage could there be to that?" Attis cried.. "They would not have wasted time with an abortifacent. They would assume that the babe would die with the mother, and not bother to ensure its expulsion from her womb. See? There is yet no blood between her legs, despite those violent contractions. If we can save the mother, methinks the babe too will survive." Attis screwed up his face in anger. "I will kill every one of these murderous monsters with my own knife," he hissed. "If they do not kill you both first," Jenna warned.
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