"Give it to his son," Marian answered promptly. "Save that no one of Arthur's court would wish to see a bastard, a patricide, carrying it."
"Merlin was not there when Arthur died," Robin went on thoughtfully. "He may have meant to give it back to the lake on Arthur's death, but if the women of Avalon took it away with the body—"
"— they would have brought it here." Marian gazed up the hill to where the trees thickened, choked with undergrowth. "But all of it is merely a story…"
"Is it?" Robin asked. "Stories are changed over time, embellished the way Alan embellishes his ballads, but what if the kernel is true? What if that man back there, whom we witnessed come out of a tree no matter how much we wish to deny it, truly is Merlin?"
"Then Arthur's grave is up there."
"And the sword," Robin said. "Excalibur" He reached out a hand to her. "Shall we find it?"
Marian put her own in his. "Alan would make a fine ballad of this."
Robin's teeth gleamed in a wide grin. "Oh, that he would! He would have us being beset on all sides by unseen enemies, battling evil spirits, making our way up a hill that crawled with the shades of long-dead men."
"Well," Marian said dryly, "of such fancies are legends born."
With every step he took ascending the hill, Robin felt oppressed. Heavy. As if his body gained the mass and weight of stones, ancient under the sun. Breath ran ragged. His head ached. It took all of his strength to put one foot after the other and continue climbing.
He knew Marian was concerned. He saw it each time she halted a step or two above him, looking back to find him toiling behind her, expending effort merely to keep moving. The bandage around his head stilled most of the blood, but a stubborn trickle dribbled continuously down beside his ear. His shoulder was wet with it, where the blood had fallen.
They were nearly to the crown of the hill when he drew his sword. He could not say why it was necessary, save to know it was. In his years upon Crusade, and more years yet as an outlaw in Sherwood, he had learned to trust his instincts.
Just as they crossed beyond the last line of trees and stepped out onto the rocky summit, Marian stopped short. Her eyes, he saw, were stretched wide, unblinking; trembling hands moved to cover her ears. The sound she made was like nothing he had ever heard from her, a combination of whimper, protest, and astonishment.
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.