Druids Read Free Page B

me gently had passed.
    I shouted again, “I won’t let her be dead! Rosmerta? Live, Rosmerta!”
    Then it happened.
    The corpse opened its eyes.
    The knife fell from Aberth’s fingers. One of the other druids muffled a cry by cramming her knuckles into her mouth. They fell back, leaving us alone.
    Rosmerta’s body shuddered. Air hissed into her mouth.
    “Grandmother! I knew you couldn’t be dead, I knew it… .”
    14 Morgan Llywelyn
    I shook her bony shoulders, I rained kisses on her defenseless
    face.
    Her voice was the papery whisper of dry leaves. ‘ ‘I should be dead. I’m so tired. So tired. Let me go, Ainvar. I need to go.”
    Tears choked me. “I cannot. What would I do without you?”
    She fought to draw another breath. “Live/* she whispered.
    Menua urged, “Listen to her, Ainvar. The law says we must respect the requests of the old. Rosmerta’s body is worn out. Would you have her remain in a collapsing dwelling?”
    I could not think, I did not know what to feel. I was all knots inside. I looked from Rosmerta to Menua and back.
    When my grandmother breathed she made a dreadful rasping noise, a sound of agony. The next breath she drew was worse.
    Menua was wrong. I did have a choice, but making it was the most difficult thing I had ever done. Something seemed to tear loose inside me as I gave Rosmerta one last, urgent hug, and pressed my lips to her ear. * ‘If you truly want to go,” I murmured, “go. I salute you as a free person,” I added, the words one Celt customarily said to another when parting.
    She sank in upon herself. A rattle sounded in her throat. A strange, bitter odor came from her gaping mouth.
    Something as insubstantial as a sigh sped past me into the
    morning.
    For a few heartbeats no one moved. Then Menua gently pulled me away. There was no resistance left in me. He bent over the old woman’s body. His examination of her was thorough. Later, when I had more wisdom, I would recall that, among other things, he had pressed his fingers very firmly against Rosmerta’s wind-pipe and held them there for a time.
    He straightened up and looked around the glade, seeking the eyes of the other druids. “Winter is dead,” he announced. “Gone beyond recall.” He flicked a glance at me.
    The ritual resumed, swirling around me like a mist. I paid no attention, I could not make sense of it. I was numbed by a sense of being alone which I had never imagined before. I would not starve, my blood kin occupied the Fort of the Grove and no clan allowed any of its members to be abandoned. But the warmth of affection Rosmerta had blanketed me with would not, could not, be replaced.
    I felt cold and naked.
    The druids chanted and circled. A hole was dug among the roots of the oaks. Rosmerta would sleep forever as I had slept the night before, embraced by the trees. Her shrouded body, wrapped
    DRUIDS 15
    in a cloth painted with eyes and spirals, was reverently returned to Earth’s womb together with a small selection of grave goods to show her status in life.
    My eyes saw. My spirit was somewhere else.
    When the ceremony was concluded we left Rosmerta in her very special grave. She was honored; usually only druids were given to the oaks. We started back toward the fort, a group of druids singing one of the songs of praise to the Source, and me among them, small. Alone. Cold.
    Except I was not cold.
    Gradually I realized I was growing warm.
    Sunlight was pouring over me like melted butter.
    Looking at the others, I saw golden light on their faces. The druids had thrown back their hoods and were walking bare-headed, and the sunlight struck sparks from hair of russet and gold. It cast a sheen on the graying locks of Grannus and haloed Menua with silver.
    Sunlight.
    We slowed, we stopped, we stared at each other.
    The chief of the vates, Keryth the seer, broke into a grin. A generously proportioned woman with half-grown children of her own, she seized the usually diffident Grannus by the hands and