A.k.a. Goddess

“Not yet.” I was still treading water, kicking my bare feet, enjoying the gentle pull of the Vonne’s current against me. I still couldn’t believe I’d left my suit home. Me! “I’m going down one more time before we give up on this spot.”

He nodded. Rhys did have a pair of swim trunks. Since he claimed that his swimming amounted to little more than a dog paddle, I wore them with my camisole while he kept watch from the bank. Neither of us actually said this was better than me swimming in my underwear, but it so was.

I took a deep breath and dove again. Deeper and deeper. Freer and freer. Free of gravity, free of whatever kernel of attraction was flirting its way between Rhys and me, free of anything but one simple goal.

Try to find, against all reason, the remains of Melusine’s “fountain” in the Colombière Forest.

It wouldn’t be the first time goddesses were worshipped at a spring—like in Bath, or Lourdes, or the Chalice Well in Glastonbury.

Deeper. Freer. Was that possibly a bowl of some sort, on its side on the bottom?

Tightening my throat against the need to breathe, I kicked closer—and startled away another turtle, in a burst of panicked mud.

I reluctantly gave up the peace of submersion for the surface, yet again. Luckily, the surface was a nice place too, with birdsong and wildflowers and gently stirring tree branches…and a far-too-intriguing companion for my peace of mind.

“Nothing,” I called, when he waved to show he’d seen me emerge. Then I began a strong sidestroke back to shore. “If there was a sacred spring along here, it will take people with more experience than me to find the signs.”

It wasn’t like we’d seen either “three fair figures” or the French version, “four nobles.” If they’d been sentinel trees, the likelihood of them living this long was low. If they’d been standing stones, we hadn’t found them.

I waded out, my hair streaming water down my back, my toes gooshing deliciously in the mud. Rhys offered a warm hand, and I accepted it, and he pulled me firmly onto the grassy bank.

Close to him.

I noticed his gaze sink to my breasts, under a film of wet camisole. My breath fell shallow…but in a good way.

He noticed me noticing, let go and turned away.

“I’m sorry,” he called over his shoulder, clearly discomfited. “I’ll walk ahead, see if there are any more promising spots.”

Oddly disappointed, I used yesterday’s T-shirt to dry off my feet before I put on my socks and boots to follow him. Interesting fashion statement, hiking boots with swim trunks. Very unacademic. I liked it.

I rezipped my backpack, which I’d apparently left open, and shouldered it. Then I hiked happily after Rhys, through what legend had it were enchanted woods.

When he glanced a truly self-conscious welcome over his shoulder and kept walking, I had to know. “Are you married?”

He stopped, startled. “What? I am not. Why?”

Because you act like it’s a sin to notice a woman’s body. It wasn’t as if he’d ogled me. “Just curious,” I said.

Rhys stared at me for a long moment. “I was engaged once,” he confessed. “She died last year, before we could marry.”

“Oh.” Way to feel guilty, Mag! “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged one shoulder and started walking again.

“So, Aunt Bridge has been researching the goddess-worship side of Melusine,” I said, to change the subject. “I’m more into the mythology. You’re her assistant, give me an overview. How would it work? Women worshipping a goddess, I mean.”

For a moment he seemed lost in other thoughts. Then he said, “That depends on the time period. Gaul stayed pagan well into the Dark Ages. Probably they would meet in a sacred grove.”

Considering that we were in a forest, that hardly narrowed things down. “How would the scene have changed once Europe converted to Christianity?”

“By the sixth century, ritual groves were being destroyed in an attempt to convert blasphemers. Like Charlemagne cutting down the sacred oaks of the Saxons.”

“And that worked? If you cut down my sacred trees, you’d tick me off worse than before.”

He’d slowed his step, so I no longer felt like I was chasing him. “Back then, power defined your ability to lead. If your gods were so great, how could they let us cut down their trees?”

I glanced at the trees around us, dappled greens and golds and browns, and felt sorry for them. “You’re not really saying that your god can beat up the other boys’ gods?”

He grinned. “The remaining pagans would have met in secrecy—at night, or in the woods.”

“So if these people worshipped a goddess who was connected to a local spring…”

Thankfully, he picked up the thread of my idea. “Then they would have met near that spring. Their ceremonies would resemble witches’ circles, complete with moonlight and cauldrons.”

“Or cups. Or bowls. Or chalices.” Or grails.

“That is it exactly,” he agreed.

I took a moment to look around us. The banks of the Vonne were slightly rockier. It was all fairly soft limestone. One boulder looked particularly significant somehow, especially white amidst vines and brush.

“How far have we come since Lusignan?” I asked.

“I’d imagine we’ve come four or five kilometers. Why?”

I was noticing another bank of white limestone, near the boulder. “Do you suppose the Melusine worshippers would have come this far out?”

“If they feared the Church more than they feared wolves.”

I noticed a third length of limestone. My pulse picked up.

Three fair figures?

I sank down into an easy crouch to untie my boots.

I kicked off one boot, then the other and put down my backpack.

Then, I waded in to swim the water where Melusine the goddess may have once bathed.

Chapter 7

B y the time Rhys and I signed ourselves into a small bed and breakfast in Vouvant, I was still pissed off.