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Demas after? My father mentioned a generous bride-price. If Demas had wealth and status, he would make an attractive groom to any eager bride. Why pick me? There were plenty of unmarried women in England.
    My thoughts reached out to one of my locked chests, and the silk pouch containing my divining bones concealed within. I wondered what the Goddess thought of all this.

 
    FOUR
    â€œWill you be long away, m’lady?”
    At the stables, Marma waited for me, saddled and ready. A young page held her reins.
    I smiled, taking the lead from his competent hands. “No, Bertram and I will be back by nightfall.”
    He nodded and walked back inside. The sounds of a rake grating against the hard-packed earth floor drifted toward the door along with clouds of hay and dust.
    An impatient nose nudged my satchel. “Good morning, beautiful.” I stroked Marma’s strong, smooth neck. “Looking for a treat, are you?”
    She snorted and I laughed, taking out one of the apples I had tucked away in my bag. I held it in my palm. Her soft lips parted and the juicy treat disappeared. I had been delighted when my father presented her to me on my seventeenth birth day. She was all white, with veins and flecks of gray, and I had called her Marma because she reminded me of the marbling in stone.
    I checked the saddle’s bindings, tightened the breast girth, and secured my sword to the side of the worn leather. I usually wore my hair braided when I rode, and I made sure its length was secured within the wolf-pelt cloak so it wouldn’t get drenched. The morning had started dry, but dark shadows rolled overhead, buoyed by a sharp, damp wind. By the time Bertram arrived, a cold sleet had started to fall.
    Enveloped in a mantle of white ermine, he stood out in stark contrast to the black gelding he rode.
    â€œThank you for accompanying me,” I said.
    â€œAnd miss the opportunity to ride in such fine weather? Perish the thought.” He drew his hood lower over his forehead.
    I nudged Marma ahead. There wasn’t a lot of room to ride two abreast along the narrow dirt pathways that snaked through the manor, and Bertram settled comfortably behind. The damp weather would no doubt slow our course as dusty roads turned into troughs of mud, but it was only a two-hour ride to the edge of the swamps, and I was confident we would make Avalon in fair time.
    Avalon was an enigmatic place, an island suspended between the lands of the living and the dead. King Arthur had spent his last few days on Earth there, shrouded in the shadowy mists of time and legend, hidden for centuries in the secret fae worlds of the Somerset Levels. From this strange, ethereal place, he would emerge triumphant once again to lead the people to victory and peace. At least, that is what the common folk believed—tenaciously. On some official map somewhere, my grandfather had labeled the island Athelney, but I preferred the mystery that surrounded the name and concept of Avalon better.
    Even my father recognized there were mystical forces at work on the island and had presented the land to my mother as a wedding gift. She recognized its power immediately and was enchanted by both the sacredness of Avalon and the thoughtfulness of the gift. She had often taken me there. It was one of the few places safe enough to keep our religion alive. With England converted to Christianity several generations earlier, the ancient Goddess religions, along with other forms of paganism, were mostly extinct and vehemently condemned by the Church. Some still believed and practiced the old ways, leaving talismans and offerings around sacred pools and knolls, but they were careful to keep their beliefs private. My mother wasn’t born in England. She came from a powerful tribe in Ireland, where the Goddess was still reverently worshipped.
    I smiled fondly. Bertram was the last of his kind in England, a mystical druid pretending to be a pious Christian.
    We