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cross at the rope that served her as a belt. Worse and worse the girl wore the robes of one who had vowed herself to
the White Christ! There would be no help there . . . if she were not witless before she had been caught, she was
probably frightened witless now. Even if she would accept help from the hands of a pagan.
* * *
Leonie tried not to show her hope. Another girl! Perhaps between the two of them, they could manage to win free!
But as the girl was shoved forward, to drop to the needles beside Leonie, something swung free of her robe to
dangle over her chest. It was a little bag, on a rawhide thong.
And the bandit chief roared again, this time with disapproval, seizing the bag and breaking the thong with a single,
cruelly hard tug of his hand. He tossed it out into the darkness and backhanded the outlaw who had brought the girl
in.
You witless bastard! he roared. You brought in a witch! A witch?
Leonie shrunk away from her fellow captive. A witch? Blessed Jesu this young woman would be just as pleased
to see Leonie raped to death! She would probably call up one of her demons to help!
As the brigand who had been struck shouted and went for his chief s throat, and the others gathered around,
yelling encouragement and placing bets, she closed her eyes, bowed her head, and prayed. Blessed Mother of God!
hear me. Angels of grace, defend us. Make them forget us for just a moment. . . .
As the brainless child started in fear, then pulled away, bowed her head, and began praying, Elfrida kept a heavy
hand on her temper. Bad enough that she was going to die and in a particularly horrible way but to have to do it in
such company!
But suddenly the outlaws were fighting. One of them appeared to be the chief; the other the one who had caught
her. And they were ignoring the two girls as if they had somehow forgotten their existence. . . .
Blessed Mother, hear me. Make it so.
The man had only tied her with a bit of leather, no stronger than the thong that had held her --herb-bag. If she wriggled just
right, bracing her tied hands against her feet, she could probably snap it.
She prayed, and pulled. And was rewarded with the welcome release of pressure as the thong snapped.
She brought her hands in front of her, hiding them in her tunic, and looked up quickly; the fight had involved a
couple more of the bandits. She and the other girl were in the shadows now, for the fire had been obscured by the men
standing or scuffling around it. If she crept away quickly and quietly
No sooner thought than done. She started to crawl away, got as far as the edge of the firelight, then looked back.
The other girl was still huddled where she had been left, eyes closed. Too stupid or too frightened to take
advantage of the opportunity to escape.
If Elfrida left her there, they probably wouldn t try to recapture her. They d have one girl still, and wouldn t go
hunting in the dark for the one that had gotten away. . . .
Elfrida muttered an oath, and crawled back.
Leonie huddled with the witch-girl under the shelter of a fallen tree, and they listened for the sounds of pursuit. She
had been praying as hard as she could, eyes closed, when a painful tug on the twine binding her wrists had made her
open her eyes.
Well, come on! the girl had said, tugging again. Leonie had not bothered to think about what the girl might be
pulling her into, she had simply followed, crawling as best she could with her hands tied, then getting up and running
when the girl did.
They had splashed through a stream, running along a moonlit path, until Leonie s sides ached. Finally the girl had
pulled her off the path and shoved her under the bulk of a fallen tree, into a little dug-out den she would never have
guessed was there. From the musky smell, it had probably been made by a fox or -badger. Leonie huddled in the dark,
trying not to sob, concentrating on the pain in her side and not on the various fates the witch-girl could have planned
for her.
Before too long, they heard shouts in the distance, but they never came very close. Leonie strained her ears,
holding her breath, to try and judge how close their pursuers were, and jumped when the witch-girl put a hand on her.
Don t, the girl whispered sharply. You won t be going far with your hands tied like that. Hold still! I m not going
to hurt you.
Leonie stuttered something about demons, without thinking. The girl laughed.
If I had a demon to come when I called, do you think I would have let a bastard like that lay hands on me? Since
there was no logical answer to that question, Leonie wisely kept quiet. The girl touched her hands, and then seized
them; Leonie kept herself from pulling away, and a moment later, felt the girl sawing at her bonds with a bit of sharp
rock. Every so often the rock cut into Leonie -instead of the twine, but she bit her lip and kept quiet, gratitude
increasing as each strand parted. What were you doing out here, anyway? the girl asked. I thought they kept your
kind mewed up like prize lambs.
I had a vision Leonie began, wondering if by her words and the retelling of her holy revelation, t h e
w i t c h - g i r l m i g h t a c t u a l l y b e
c o n v e r t e d t o -Christianity. It happened that way all the time in the tales of the saints,
after all. . . .
So while the girl sawed patiently at the bonds with the sharp end of the rock, Leonie told her everything, from the
time she realized that something was wrong, to the moment the bandit took her captive. The girl stayed silent through
all of it, and Leonie began to hope that she might bring the witch-girl to the Light and Life of Christ.
The girl waited until she had obviously come to the end, then laughed, unpleasantly. Suppose, just suppose, she
said, I were to tell you that the -exact same vision was given to me? Only it isn t some mystical cup that this land
needs, it s the Cauldron of Cerridwen, the ever-renewing, for the High King refuses to sacrifice himself to save his
kingdom as the Holy Bargain demands and only the Cauldron can give the land the blessing of the Goddess.
The last of the twine snapped as she finished, and Leonie pulled her hands away. Then I would say that your
vision is wrong, evil, she retorted. There is no goddess, only the Blessed Virgin
Who is one face of the Goddess, who is Maiden, Mother and Wise One, the girl interrupted, her words dripping
acid. Only a fool would fail to see that. And your White Christ is no more than the Sacrificed One in one of His many
guises it is the Cauldron the land needs, not your apocryphal Cup
Your cauldron is some demon-thing, Leonie replied, angrily. Only the Grail
Whatever else she was going to say was lost, as the tree-trunk above them was riven into splinters by a bolt of
lightning that blinded and deafened them both for a moment.
When they looked up, tears streaming from their eyes, it was to see something they both recognized as The Enemy.
Standing over them was a shape, outlined in a glow of its own. It was three times the height of a man, black and
hairy like a bear, with the tips of its outstretched claws etched in fire. But it was not a bear, for it wore a leather
corselet, and its head had the horns of a bull, the snout and tusks of a boar, dripping foam and saliva, and its eyes,
glowing an evil red, were slitted like a goat s.
Leonie screamed and froze. The witch-girl seized her bloody wrist, hauled her to her feet, and ran with her stumbling
along behind.
The beast roared and followed after. They had not gotten more than forty paces down the road, when the witch-girl
fell to the ground with a cry of pain, her hand slipping from Leonie s wrist.
Her ankle Leonie thought, but no more, for the beast was shambling towards them. She grabbed the girl s arm
and hauled her to her feet; draped her arm over her own shoulders, and dragged her erect. Up ahead there was
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