She knew why the nun had ordered her to keep silence on the subject; she’d heard the lecture to her parents through the door. The Mother Superior didn’t believe in Leonie’s visions—or rather, she was not convinced that they were really visions. “This could simply be a young woman’s hysteria,” she’d said sternly, “or an attempt to get attention. If the former, the peace of the convent and the meditation and prayer will cure her quickly enough—if the latter, well, she’ll lose such notions of self-importance when she has no one to prate to.”
“I know you haven’t, child,” Mother Magdalene said wearily, and Leonie saw how the nun’s hands were blistered from the spade she herself had wielded today, how her knuckles were swollen, and her cheekbones cast into a prominence that had nothing to do with the dim lighting in the chapel. “I wanted to know if you still have them.”
“Sometimes,” Leonie said hesitantly. “That was how—I mean, that was why I woke last winter, when Sister Maria was elf-shot—”
“Sister Maria was not elf-shot,” Mother Magdalene said automatically. “Elves could do no harm to one who trusts in God. It was simply something that happens to the very old, now and again, it is a kind of sudden brain-fever. But that isn’t the point. You’re still having the visions—but can you still see things that you want to see?”
“Sometimes,” Leonie said cautiously. “If God and the Blessed Virgin permit.”
“Well, if God is ever going to permit it, I suspect He’d do so during Holy Week,” Mother Magdalene sighed. “Leonie, I am going to ask you a favor. I’d like you to make a vigil tonight.”
“And ask for a vision?” Leonie said, raising her head in sudden interest.
“Precisely.” The nun shook her head, and picked up her beads, telling them through her fingers as she often did when nervous. “There is something wrong with us, with the land, with the kingdom—I want you to see if God will grant you a vision of what.” As Leonie felt a sudden upsurge of pride, Mother Magdalene added hastily, “You aren’t the only one being asked to do this—every order from one end of the kingdom to the other has been asked for visions from their members. I thought long and hard about asking this. But you are the only one in my convent who has ever—had a tendency to visions.”
The Mother Superior had been about to say something else, Leonie was sure, for the practical and pragmatic Mother Magdalene had made her feelings on the subject of mysticism quite clear over the years. But that didn’t matter—what did matter was that she was finally going to be able to release that pent-up power again, to soar on the angels’ wings. Never mind that there were as many devils “out there” as angels; her angels would protect her, for they always had, and always would.
Without another word, she knelt on the cold stone before the altar, fixed her eyes on the bright little gilded cross above it, and released her soul’s hold on her body.
“What did you see?” Mag asked, as Elfrida came back, shivering and spent, to consciousness. Her body was lying on the ground beside the fire, and it felt too tight, like a garment that didn’t fit anymore—but she was glad enough to be in it again, for there had been thousands of those evil creatures waiting for her, trying to prevent her from reaching—
“The Cauldron,” she murmured, sitting up slowly, one hand on her aching head. “There was a Cauldron “
“Of course!” Mag breathed. “The Cauldron of the Goddess! But—” It was too dark for Elfrida to see Mag, other than as a shadow in the darkness, but she somehow felt Mag’s searching eyes. “What about the Cauldron? When is it coming back? Who’s to have it? Not the High King, surely—”
“I’m—supposed to go look for it—” Elfrida said, vaguely. “That’s what They said—I’m supposed to go look for it.”
Mag’s sharp intake of breath told her of Mag’s shock. “But—no, I know you, when you come out of this,” she muttered, almost as if to herself. “You can’t lie. If you say They said for you to go, then go you must.”
Elfrida wanted to say something else, to ask what it all meant, but she couldn’t. The vision had taken too much out of her, and she was whirled away a second time, but this time it was not on the winds of vision, but into the arms of exhausted sleep.
“What did you see?” Mother Superior asked urgently. Leonie found herself lying on the cold stone before the altar, wrapped in someone’s cloak, with something pillowed under her head. She felt very peaceful, as she always did when the visions released her, and very, very tired. There had been many demons out there, but as always, her angels had protected her. Still, she was glad to be back. There had never been quite so many of the evil things there before, and they had frightened her.
She had to blink a few times, as she gathered her memories and tried to make sense of them. “A cup,” she said, hesitantly—then her eyes fell upon the Communion chalice on the altar, and they widened as she realized just what she truly had seen. “No—not a cup, the Cup! We’re to seek the Grail! That’s what They told me!”
“The Grail?” Mother Magdalene’s eyes widened a little herself, and she crossed herself hastily. “Just before you—you dropped over, you reached out. I thought I saw—I thought I saw something faint, like a ghost of a glowing cup in your hands—”
Leonie nodded, her cheek against the rough homespun of the habit bundled under her head. “They said that to save the kingdom, we have to seek the Grail.”
“We?” Mother Magdalene said, doubtfully. “Surely you don’t mean—”
“The High King’s knights and squires, some of the clergy—and—me—” Leonie’s voice trailed off, as she realized what she was saying. “They said the knights will know already and that when you hear about it from Camelot, you’ll know I was speaking the truth. But I don’t want to go!” she wailed. “I don’t! I—”
“I’m convinced of the truth now,” the nun said. “Just by the fact that you don’t want to go. If this had been a sham, to get attention, you’d have demanded special treatment, to be cosseted and made much of, not to be sent off on your own.”
“But—” Leonie protested frantically, trying to hold off unconsciousness long enough to save herself from this exile.
“Never mind,” the Mother Superior said firmly. “We’ll wait for word from Camelot. When we hear it, then you’ll go.”
Leonie would have protested further, but Mother Magdalene laid a cool hand across her hot eyes, and sleep came up and took her.
Elfrida had never been this far from her home village before. The great forest through which she had been walking for most of the day did not look in the least familiar. In fact, it did not look like anything anyone from the village had ever described.
And why hadn’t Mag brought her here to gather healing herbs and mushrooms?
The answer seemed clear enough; she was no longer in lands Mag or any of the villagers had ever seen.
She had not known which way to go, so she had followed the raven she saw flying away from the village. The raven had led her to the edge of the woods, which at the time had seemed quite ordinary. But the oaks and beeches had turned to a thick growth of fir; the deeper she went, the older the trees became, until at last she was walking on a tiny path between huge trunks that rose far over her head before properly branching out. Beneath those spreading branches, thin, twiggy growth reached out skeletal fingers like blackened bones, while the upper branches cut off most of the light, leaving the trail beneath shrouded in a twilight gloom, though it was midday.