Part Eight - The Well-Worn Path
"Walk on, go through."
The young woman spurred her horse into the water, fording the river where a well defined track ran along both banks in opposite directions, clearly marking a safe place to cross. The water came up to the horse's chest and the surge of it splashed up and over the woman's clothes; a light shift clinging to her belly and to her breasts, lush and full.
The horse held its head high; the woman held hers higher, tall and proud, commanding the horse with her own strength and grace; a proud woman on a high horse.
Her father had given her the stallion five years before, on her fifteenth birthday.
"Ride like the wind, Lilith, never fall."
"I'll never fall, Father. You'll ride beside me, always beside me."
Lilith rode as fast as the wind, her blonde hair flying, her cheeks red flushed, the daughter of the king. Breathless and excited, she would jump down from the horse and throw herself into her father's arms, reaching up to kiss him on the lips.
"Artur, don't indulge her. Let her fall. She'll learn faster that way."
Morgayne watched her daughter, knowing the girl was just like she was, could never be taught; but would learn far too much all by herself, and with her father's natural born skill.
Lilith learned to control the steed, eighteen hands high, effortlessly, and never fell.
Standing close to his mother, Lilith's brother Mordant glowered. He could manage horses too, but it was always his will against theirs, and they fought him. He favoured his mother, was dark like her darkness, and stood watching. Lilith moved always in light; Mordant was always in shadow, hiding the blaze on his face.
"Walk on, go through."
She bent to the horse's neck, whispering in its ear. They reached the far bank, and she urged her mount fast up the incline, away from the river. At the top of the slope she wheeled around, looking back towards Tyntangel, far to the south by the sea. She looked on her distant home for a long while, before turning to the north. <i>I'm coming,</i> she thought, <i>are you ready?</i>
The horse and its rider were the only moving things to be seen on the high bank of the river, the grassland smooth to the next ridge. Paths where the small creatures ran criss-crossed the valley, losing themselves amongst rivulets and curling around clustered trees. The air was still, late summer warm. High above, a goshawk circled.
Lilith pulled up the horse, and took off the light cloth of her shift, tugging it up over her head, baring her full breasts, golden brown. She rode uncovered whenever she could, loving the fresh wind on her skin, the rising heat in her breasts. Her skin was tanned, with a faint fine hair on her arms like gold shimmered dust. She twisted the long mane of her hair like a skein of wool her grandmother taught her, tying it with two cords to prevent it tangling in the galloping wind.
She spurred the horse on, and stood glorious tall on the stirrups with her arms outstretched, opening her body to the sky. She rode like this for twenty breaths, her lungs aching as she sucked in air to cool her throbbing heart. She screamed, ripping up sound from her gut, a primal shriek of a woman so alive, a raw thrill from deep in her throat. <i>I'm coming, are you ready for me!</i>
The horse slowed, whinnied, and shook its big head, settling to a high trot. Lilith lowered herself to the saddle, her cunt awake and wet, soul fucked arousal heavy in her breasts, her hard brown nipples so tight. She was all rhythmic motion with lust in her gut and a hungry clamour in her head. The king's daughter, coming to claim her crown.
Lilith cooled, reigning in her passion but knowing the strength of it and what she wanted. She was her mother's daughter, too, and Morgayne had taught her cauldron and hex, stone and tree. The Goddess ran in her blood, and Lilith knew it.
Lilith and her horse walked on the well-worn path, heading north to the heart of Artur's country. She followed the map her father had given her, drawn from his memory and marked out in days; the distance each day a good rider could travel.
"You might need a day or two longer, Lilith. The map marks my days."
"I might need a day or two shorter, Father. The map doesn't show all the ways, not the ones my mother taught me."
Morgayne looked on, amused, seeing their daughter challenge her father with her different paths, her secret ways.
Artur glanced across at his sister, a steady gaze in his eyes and a wry smile, as if to say, <i>Look at this creature we have made, she's taken the best of us and makes us both better.</i>
Mordant looked on, then turned away.
Lilith rode north at a steady pace. Seven days on she came to the southern edge of a wide low water, a maze of marshes and the high encroaching sea. The place was crossed by a number of ancient paths, stretching out across the bog and the hundred waters, made of timber plank, cut rushes and cord, packed tight enough to bear her horse's weight. She dismounted and wrapped a cloak around herself, for a slow drizzling rain crept in and the horizon came down around her, holding the land close and the sky closer.
"Well, my friend," Lilith said to the horse, "this will be a dull, wet day for a walk. Let's on."
At first she led the stallion by its halter. Their passage across the marsh was slow, dictated by the animal's ability to make its way over the uneven surface of the track. He grew uneasy, surrounded by so much water, his eyes wide and ears laid back. She walked beside him now, calming the beast with a low sing-song croon, her hand on its neck.
The main path was clear to see, the grass underfoot pressed low with many travellers' feet, and they made slow, steady progress. After a time, they rested on a small raised island, covered with short grass for the horse and small standing stones for Lilith's back. She pondered how many times her father might have rested in this place, making his way south to his sister and his children; making his way north to his kingdom and the demands of men.
As she rested, a strange hush came over the place. The croak and cry of marsh birds fell silent. Her horse whinnied and stamped a hoof twice.
"Hush now, be still." Lilith's voice was a low command, and her senses heightened in the preternatural silence. She stood as still as the stone she had leaned against, straining her eyes and ears in the mist. Alerted by a soft splash, as if someone had kicked a small pebble into the water, not far off, Lilith opened wide her senses and heard the beating of her horse's heart, deep inside its chest. She calmed her own heart and slowed her breath, whispering, "Walk by, don't see."
A small cloaked figure emerged from the mist, about twenty arm lengths away. It seemed to glide across the grass, its cloak long, down to its feet. Lilith could not make out any features, the face was hidden within a deep hood. The figure kept on and passed them by, the only sound a soft swish of the cloak's hem as it brushed along the ground.
Curious, Lilith waited a moment, then followed. The path the lone traveller took departed the main path at near ninety degrees, and Lilith began to walk west, slowly following. She maintained the same distance between herself and the silent walker, keeping her eyes on the glimmer ahead, her hand gripping the rein of her horse behind. She did not creep but followed openly, unable to quiet the horse's plod. But the beast made little sound, the grass on this track longer, less worn.
The figure ahead gave no sign of her presence, and moved steadily on. Lilith saw the marks of small feet light on the ground, bent stalks of grass slowly straightening from the lightness of the gliding weight. The walker ahead was smaller than Lilith, who shortened her pace so she wouldn't catch up.
The little procession continued, and the ground solidified beneath their feet. The marsh world with its water splash and a hover of wind fell behind. Ahead of them, Lilith became aware of a steady low sound, and guessed they were nearing the sea.
The misting rain stopped, and as they walked on the cloud lifted. Cresting a rise, Lilith turned and looked back, where the silent world of the marshy lake was hidden in a wide bank of mist. The path they had trodden trailed back into the grey veil and was lost.
Ahead of them, Lilith saw the path leading down towards a line of dunes, and beyond them the sea, grey distant to the horizon, a wide plain of flat sand, the water far off. Lilith had heard her father speak of the huge tides where the sea pressed up between his land and the wilderness of Wales. She guessed she was seeing the broad estuary where the Sevyrn ran wide to the endless Atlant.
She observed the figure in front of her climb a high dune and look out to the sea. The sea-watcher pulled back the hood from her head, and Lilith saw a white coil of hair and a delicate, pale face; a woman older than she, and smaller. Yet somehow the woman seemed taller than she stood, a strength in her stance that belied her small frame.
Lilith didn't move, didn't speak, and stood close to her horse, its hot life pulsating under the calm of her hand resting on its neck. She stood a stone's long throw from the woman on the dune.
The woman turned her gaze back towards Lilith and the horse, and Lilith saw a puzzlement on her face, as if she were seeing them for the first time.
"Horse, what you? I felt a big life walk behind me through the marsh, following along like lost." The woman stretched out her hand towards the horse. She clicked her tongue, "Tch, tch," and the horse stepped towards her, its head low and ears back, nervous but compelled.
Lilith stood very still, barely breathing, watching this strange greeting.
The stallion went up to the woman and nuzzled her shoulder with its nose. Lilith watched how the woman took up the hanging rein, turned the leather over in her hands, and saw how she looked at the saddle, and the panniers strapped with Lilith's load.
"What you, boy, out here alone? You're fine bred, sure, a noble horse, a big grey thing. What manner of man left you wander here, all a by yourself?"
Lilith was perplexed. Could this woman not see her, even though she stood clear on the path, her shadow stretched dark behind her on the ground? She remembered her whisper, when first the figure appeared in the mist. <i>Walk by, don't see,</i> but didn't think her hex so strong. She stepped forward, and the sudden movement must have broken the trancing air, for the woman started, taking a step backward in her surprise.
"Who are you, girl, who hides in plain sight? What nobility, who rides this fine horse?"
Lilith walked towards the other woman, her hands held out before her, palms upwards, showing no weapons, no tricks, no lies. The woman's gaze as she approached was intense, questions flickering all unasked, Lilith's mystery a clear surprise.
