"I will stay until dawn," Dallan agreed, "but only to greet my daughter as queen. I must return to my own throne, afterward, for winter is soon upon us and many preparations have yet to be made."
"Of course," Morgana nodded, even as Keelin's lips quivered—despite her attempt to show a brave countenance. "Shall we, then, lead our heirs to their marriage bed?"
When Riona translated, Dallan mac Dalriada smiled and offered his arm. They descended once more to the shingle and Morgana led them down past the high bluff, where the sea and countless millennia of rainwater seeping through the soil had carved caves in the limestone. They paused at the entrance to the nuptial cavern long enough for Dallan mac Dalriada to pull his daughter close for one final hug. When Riona took the trembling young bride into the cavern first, to prepare her, Dallan mac Dalriada strode briskly back down the strand toward his ship.
Morgana said quietly, "See to it, Medraut, that your bride knows pleasure before you allow yourself to taste it and you will have begun your marriage wisely. Hands, lips, whispers, and all of it exceedingly gentle and patient."
He gulped. "I will try, Aunt."
"See that you do." She embraced him warmly. "I am deeply proud in you, Medraut. I will ride to the cottage nearest Lochmaben circle, where the captain of your fine fishing sloop has invited us to spend the night, and will see you again in the morning. Send Riona after me and we'll go there together."
As she turned to leave, glancing back over one shoulder, she prayed that she had done the right thing, in this. Whatever the outcome, she had acted for the best. There was nothing else to be done—except lie awake and wonder what Artorius truly would say.
The night was waning its way toward dawn when Covianna slipped into the abbey. She had not come by the normal route, up the path through the labyrinth, but rather through a narrow fissure which was concealed behind the main hearth of her mother's forge house, a fissure hidden by the enormous bellows and a panel of rock placed as a door to further close off the opening to those not permitted to know the full secrets of Glastenning Tor. Her mother's forge house stood at the base of the hill, with no other buildings between its rear wall and the beginning of the labyrinth—and the beginning of the secret passage Covianna followed, lifting her skirts clear of the dampness and trickling water underfoot.
The passage led upwards along the selfsame path as the labyrinth's walls, having been cut beneath them. The lowest stone of the walls served as ceiling for the passageway. It was cramped and narrow, forcing her to bend nearly double most of the way, but led her steadily upwards in safety, an escape route her remote ancestors had built centuries before the coming of the Romans, so the legends of her family said.
Whoever had built it, near the summit, the underground path divided, one branch to her left leading down toward the deep caverns of the Tor, used for centuries as shelter in time of siege; the other path led upward, toward the hidden exit inside the abbey itself, whose builders and architects had come from Covianna's own ancestors, intent on preserving their secrets intact from any and all comers, including the priests of the new religion.
Particularly from the priests of the new religion.
When at last she emerged, taking the right-hand, upward-sloping turn, Covianna found herself in the lovely Mary Chapel, situated in the very center of the Great Mother's Holy Vulva, a placement that made Covianna smile in wry humor. The fools who ran the abbey had not the faintest idea that their "Mary Chapel," devoted to Mary Queen of Heaven and Mother of the Christ Child, concealed a passage down the very birth canal of the far older Holy Brigit, Goddess of the Tor.
Covianna shook out her skirts and straightened her back, which ached from the long, bent-over climb. The oil lamp she carried sent golden light splashing across the altar, behind which was the ancient eggstone of the old shrine. Intricately carved, the eggstone was topped by a hollow where ancient priestesses had sat, menstruating lifeblood onto the stone while uttering oracular prophecies.
She set her lamp in the hollow of the stone, no longer needing its light to make her way and not wishing to waken anyone except Myrddin. She smiled in anticipation. This was not the first trip she had made, tonight, along the secret pathway. Her previous three trips had served to transport everything she would need to spring the trap on her chosen victim. It waited, patiently, below the earth for his arrival.
Covianna whispered along the corridor leading past the monks' pitiful little cells, the silence broken only by the mouse-soft hush of her skirts and the occasional shattering snore from some overfed inhabitant. Emrys Myrddin had been given the guest chamber beside the abbot's room, reserved for visiting dignitaries. The door was only partially closed, allowing her to slide inside without a betraying creak of iron hinges.
A trickle of light from a high, narrow window fell like a sword blade across the bed. She could see the soft rise and fall of the woolen blanket across Myrddin's chest. For just a moment, she regretted the necessity of destroying such a brilliant mind, not to mention the most skilled lover she'd ever lain with; but only for a moment. Marguase's shade cried out for justice and this man's death was the first step in obtaining it. Pulse thundering, Covianna tiptoed across and used a long strand of her hair to tickle Myrddin awake.
Myrddin's eyelids flickered, then he focused on her face. A tiny furrow appeared between his brows. "Trouble?" he breathed.
She smiled reassuringly. "Not a bit. I've something to show you."
He leaned up on one elbow, so that the blanket slid to his waist. "Show me? In the middle of the night?"
" 'Tis the safest time."
Myrddin's eyes widened. "You've found the caverns beneath the Tor? I knew they must exist!"
Covianna breathed out a chuckle. "Oh, aye, they exist, all right. I've known for years how to reach them. So have all the clan heads of my family line. We're just chary of those we share the secret with, as I'm sure you must understand, given your own training."
The corners of his eyes crinkled. "Indeed. Let me get my boots and cloak."
A moment later, she was leading him through the silent abbey, down to the Mary Chapel, and through the opening, rescuing her lamp from the eggstone. "This way," she murmured, waiting for him to pass before closing the hidden exit. "The tunnels have existed for centuries, so far as we know. It's a bit cramped."
They bent low, following the passageway down to the split, then turning downward for the journey to the first of the caverns. Lamplight flickered across dressed stone, casting distorted shadows as they crept ever downward into the earth. A glow of light from ahead beckoned them forward. "I've been into the cavern already," she murmured by way of explanation when he commented on the fact, "to set everything up. It's far more spectacular when you can see everything in the first instant." Within moments, the walls and ceiling opened out into a magnificent stone chamber nearly thirty feet high. Myrddin gasped.
Glittering stalactites dripped from the ceiling in thousands of points like the teeth of dragons, mirrored by the sharp points of stalagmites reaching toward the roof of the cave. Rock glittered in blood-red and golden hues, glistening with ever-present water which poured and splashed down massive columns of rock. Shimmers of white crystal like hoarfrost surrounded deep, black pools along the floor. The roar of underground torrents vibrated the floor and the very air of the room, from deeper within the hill; at the far end of the cavern, a spectacular waterfall plunged from the ceiling and vanished into the bowels of the deeper caves, adding its volume to the water which gushed to the surface in the Tor's sacred springs. Lit torches burned every few feet, thrust into iron brackets some ancestor had driven into the walls.