“Princess Perdita,” Holly said stiffly, formally, as she tended to
when she was beyond furious. “Please come with us.”
Perdita did so, hopping on one foot as she finished tying her sandal.
The mystes led them into the sanctum, past its birthing and healing pools, its
meditation streams, its fountains for worship and for drinking. The place was
empty, soundless but for the faint rill of the goddess’s waters flowing in
from the antechamber. Holly did not stop there but headed for a closed door
made of unadorned black wood in the back of the sanctum. A wooden sconce
beside the door held an unlit candle. Lit, it requested privacy for those
within. Holly barely waited for Perdita to light the candle before she flung
open the door. The room was not empty. It was, however, occupied by the one
woman who would not have fled from the look on Mystes Halliwell’s face.
“Aunt Morrig,” Perdita exclaimed as she recognized the darkly clad figure
beside the pool, her aged face a pale blur in the dimness.
“My fault,” Morrig said. “I didn’t light the candle. I come in here
sometimes to remember my dead. They become more numerous when you’re as old
as I am. And they seem to have much more to say.”
The heart of the sanctum held only one broad bowl of a pool, lined with river
stones. Water flowed silently out of a blue-green marble globe in the center
of the pool. Above the water, the ancient face of the goddess, carved in
moon-white marble, gazed from the domed ceiling down at its own reflection.
The pool was ringed with candles. Marble benches alternating the colors of the
goddess were scattered around the water. It was a place for stillness and
solitude, built for those who mourned.
It was also, when the door was closed and the candle lit, the most private
place in the palace.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Lady Seabrook,” Holly said tightly. “We came
here to talk.”
“Then you might as well join us,” Morrig said, waving a hand at the shadows.
“They won’t mind. They like company. And they’re incredibly discreet. They
won’t say a word outside this room.”
The mystes shook her head, unable to speak. Abruptly, she walked out of her
shoes, pulled up her robe, and stepped into the water. She shifted candles,
sat down on the edge of the pool, the flickering reflections of light around
her ankles rippling across the gentle fall of water from the endlessly weeping
globe. She held the book out to Perdita.
“Will you read this, Princess? Where I have marked it. I’m too upset.”
Wondering, Perdita opened the pages. The queen settled herself on a bench
beside the mystes; the princess sat under a tall branch of candles and began
to read.
“‘The god Severen lay dying. His mighty rush from mountain to sea slowed.
His shores became barren as waters ebbed. Fish died in great numbers, all down
the long path he made to the sea. The great herds that drank from him fought
and thinned and dwindled for the lack of him. No cloud hid the burning sun
from dawn through night and again dawn. No rain fell. The god lay dying. Frogs
and salamanders died; mosses grew dry and died; the great birds that fed on
the creatures of the river died for the lack of them. Daily, the water grew
shallow, grew inward, far from its shores; the river bottom grew hard and dry
as stone. And the great mouth of the river dried as it opened to the sea; no
water came down to give life to those that spawned in sweet and followed the
salt to the sea.
“‘In his weakness, in his dire distress, the river god took his human aspect
and prayed for water as it left his veins.
“‘She came then, in answer to his call. Though he had overwhelmed her,
carried her to the sea over and over without thought or shame, she came to
him. She raised his head up from the dead mosses and reeds and held her
healing vessel to his lips. He drank. He drank.
“‘His veins filled. His waters quickened. He drank. He opened his eyes and
saw her face between his face and the sun, shading him like a cloud.
“‘The sky remembered how to fashion cloud; cloud covered the sun everywhere
across the land, and everywhere from dawn to night and again to dawn the hard,
sweet rains began to fall.’”
“You see?” Mystes Halliwell said in bitter triumph to the princess and the
queen. “Calluna and her cup. Her power. Not Severen’s. She saved his life.”
“Surely Lord Skelton knows the tale,” the queen said.
“He does, my lady. He says that since the only written version of that tale
is less than four centuries old, and he has never seen an older reference to
the tale, it is too recent to be of interest.”
“Is that where you got the book? From Sylvester?” Morrig asked.
“No, of course not. He wouldn’t lend me the time of day. The book belongs to
us. I found it in the sanctum library. I’ve been searching the archives for
anything that pertains to this tale. Anything that Lord Skelton didn’t find
first, that is. I wouldn’t put it past him to have a few things hidden on his
shelves that could point toward the truth of the matter.”