"No, it's a tale of Toad I'll be telling you, but a new one; how Toad and his friends fought off the wicked weasels who tried to seize Toad Hall. Now, you know Toad had a good heart, but he could be a foolish fellow when the mood took him-perhaps Robin Goodfellow had been about his cradle, eh? Like a little person I could name but won't, the one with the sunset-colored hair there."
Rudi grinned and ducked his head. Juniper put her guitar across her lap, and strummed a cord; she'd be speaking mostly, but an occasional tune didn't hurt, nor a little background music to help out the magic of the words.
"Difficult Mr. Toad found it to remember that is mink a bhris beal duine a shron, it is often that a person's mouth broke their nose."
She could see lips moving as they memorized that. A few didn't get it, and their friends filled them in, miming a punch in the face.
"So long ago, when Toad and Mole and Ratty and Badger lived along the river in a land much like ours, and the people of feather and fur and stream spoke everyday with our heavy-footed kind: "
There was a mass sigh from the children, and they leaned forward, their eyes bright in the firelight.
Beneath the happiness, a small cold voice spoke at the back of Juniper's mind: Enjoy yourself while you can, Chief of the Mackenzies. Storm clouds fly, and ravens gather.
"Heave-ho!"
The cry rang out again, and a dozen hands hauled at the rope. The Lady's pillar swung erect, the base thumping down into its bedding, and more Sutterdowners with padded poles held it erect while the braces were fixed that would keep it so until the concrete dried. The tackle and pulleys were taken down from the arch above, and the ceremonial gate at the northeast quadrant of the circle was complete.
Juniper had to admit the folk of Sutterdown had spared nothing to make their covenstead splendid; in fact, seeing such a thing openly put the town's heart left her a little uneasy, after long years of discretion before the Change. She knew consciously that in the Mackenzie territories the Craft was the faith of the majority these days, had been for years in fact, and of a large and ever-growing majority at that. Unconsciously:
Two hills anchored the western edge of Sutterdown, each a hundred and forty feet above the general level of the town. The covenstead was on the summit of the southern hill, with a magnificent view of the curling Sut-ter River glinting in the noonday sun-town and stream had been named after the same pioneer who'd built a ferry here in 1846-and the farmlands beyond to west, south and north, the low shaggy hills rising towards the mountains to the northeast. Downslope were the crenel-lations of the new town wall and its low towers with their witches'-hat roofs; beyond that was a great green park in the U-shaped bend of the river, an expanse of trees and flower-starred spring meadow speckled now with the tents of visitors come for the festival. The new-planted Sutterdown nemed -Sacred Wood-was in the park too, a broad circle of oaks and beeches that would be majestic in a generation or two.
The top of the hill was so already. It had been planed flat, then replanted with grass, flower banks red and blue and white and purple, bright bushes and young trees. The center held the big open-sided circular building itself; great pillarlike Douglas fir trunks supporting a truss roof covered in wooden strakes, the ends of the rafters carved into the animal-head shapes of the Mackenzie totems. Inside was a brick pavement with the symbols of the Quarters at their stations and swirling patterns elsewhere; the altar at the north was a block of blue-green nephrite acid-etched in curling knotwork. Today the four Quarters held gifts; images of the God and Goddess as Apollo and Aphrodite in the north, done in some hard white stone; a ritual sword in the south; great straw-wound glass firkins of wine in the west-that had been Astrid-and Dun Juniper's contribution, covered with a cloth marked with the pentagram in the east.
The bowl-shaped hearth in the very center of the pavement was full of split oak, stacked ready to light. That would be the Sutterdown teine eigin, the needfire; all the community's hearths and the Beltane bonfires would be kindled from it.
Warm spring wind cuffed at Juniper's robe; the hood was back, and a garland of lilies and verbena covered the headband that held the silver crescent moon on her brows, with green ribbons fluttering. The air held a scent of incense and flowers; and of damp coolness from the river, of fresh timber and mortar and brick. Most of the other robed participants about her wore garlands as well, and many carried thyrsi, long willow wands decorated with bells and ribbons and cowslips; their slight silvery music made a pleasant undertone to the murmur of voices from the crowd on the slope below. Then a great cheer came from the eastern gate, and roars from the others; the winners of the race about the town's outer boundaries were coming.
Soon Juniper could see the first of them running up the steep way from the town square and city hall to the hilltop, the leader with the yellow banner of the East and of Air waving it aloft. Grinning and panting the others followed, spreading out around the pillar circle to place their banners at the Quarters.
Dennis Martin Mackenzie, High Priest of the Singing Moon, was beside her as she moved forward then; he had a solid dignity to him in the robe and antlered headdress, a gravity that his smile did nothing to dispel. The High Priest and Priestess of Sutterdown-Tom Brannigan and his wife Mora-followed, as Juniper took up the bowl of May wine and poured a libation to the new-set pillars.
"Aphrodite, Foam-born Goddess, Bringer of joy, Lady of our hearts' delight! Apollo of the Sun, Lord of Light, God who loves justice and due proportion in men and cities! Sutterdown today dedicates itself to the God and Goddess in Your shapes. Bring Your gifts within its walls, and within our hearts!"
She sipped from the bowl; strawberries and cool wine, flowers and ground woodruff. Another cheer rose from below, and a sudden thudding of drums; drums and chanting to drive the power outward, out to the markers beyond the walls where the banners had been. She looked up to meet the carven eyes, and blinked a little; Dennie had been at her all winter to advise him on the work, but she'd told him to go meditate and ask the deities how they wanted to be shown. Evidently, he'd done just that, but you could only see the full fruit of it when the pillars were in their appointed place.
At first glance the face of Apollo was purely the Olympian, balanced and clear, the ever-victorious Light that dispels darkness. But if you looked a little longer the eyes seemed dark themselves, fathomless with incommunicable wisdom:
Apollo Loxias, the voice from the fissure in the navel of Earth. Pythian Apollo. The words of the ancient poet rang in her heart: He came down the mountain like the shadow of falling night: and the words became a vision in her heart, of a tall striding darkness edged with fire.
The delicate beauty of the Cyprian was more than it seemed as well; one minute a woman in the full flush of beauty whose parted lips promised, next a shy girl, then someone older, stern and wise:
Dennie, you are wiser than you know or will admit. These will remind anyone who sees them that the forms the God and Goddess take are true-but that They are also more than any form can contain.
Juniper took up the sword and made the first ritual cut in the space between the carved pillars, closing the Circle to create the sacred space; then paced around it sunwise:
"I conjure you, O Circle of Power, that you may be a meeting place of love and joy and truth; a shield against all wickedness and evil; a boundary between the world of human kind and the realms of the Mighty Ones: "
Sutterdown Dedicants tossed and twirled the banners as she called the Quarters. The Sutterdown High Priest and Priestess knelt to receive the gifts on the Eastern table; wands, crowns of silver leaves and moon opal; of antlers and gold; and the trifold woven cords that Juniper and Dennis bent to tie around their waists, white and black and red.