By the ford of the Green River as it passed through the wooded valley of the Knee, Sephanus washed what little rags passed for clothes for the rabble of trainees in the village college.  She was not a washer-woman, but the clothes had to be washed, and her particular talents were not required that morning in the college.  Though bent like a crone at the work, she was beautiful beyond mortal breath.  The gentle rhythm, as she scrubbed the rough woven trews and shirts against the washer-stone, sent her honey blonde hair waving in homage around her soft intelligent features.  Her blue eyes flashed in the midday sun as she saw the stranger appear suddenly in the clearing opposite her.

	She had no idea if he had been watching her for long, yet his smiling face and easy stance put her at her ease, and she risked a question to him.

	`Awen stranger.  What brings you to The Knee?'

	The smile didn't waver as the stocky man made his nimble way across the scatter of stepping stones, which described the fording place.  `Awen, sweet lady.  The Knee is it?  When I was last here it had a different name.'  He hopped the last stone and landed on the dry dirt bank of the river.  He carried a knap over his shoulder, and Sephanus placed him at no more than one score and ten years.  Though a traveller, it was obvious from his size that he had known as feast or two.

	`It has always been The Knee as long as I can remember, sir.'

	`Abinieri is my name.  Please feel free to use it as you wish.'  His dark eyes flashed at her, and she looked away, suddenly bashful.  She began gathering up the wet clothes and placing them in a weave basket.

	`Well, Abinieri, if you were here before it was known as the Knee, it was certainly a very long time ago.  And yet you look no more than a very few summers older than I do.'

	He laughed, and dropped his knapsack, and began helping her load the rags.  `You are not one to let my babblings pass, I feel, sweet lady.  I have been here before, but not in this life.  And on that I will say more at a later hour, if you desire.  But please, you use my name with some familiarity and ease.  Let me do the same with yours, with your permission?'

	`And why do you want to know my name, Abinieri?  For soon you will take up that knap of yours and wander out of this vale until the next time you wish to pass and make mysterious comments to the first lady you come across.'

	`Not true at all.  I may be a traveller, but this is my destination.  I shall remain here for quite some time yet. '  He flourished his hand and bowed graciously.  `I am the new Ovate, and I am pleased to be at your service, sweet lady.'

	Sephanus clutched her hands together. `Oh, I should have realised!  Abinieri the Ovate!  And you shall call me Sephanus, if it pleases you.  Come quickly,  Liamh and the elders are waiting for you.'  She took his arm, noting how strange but comforting it felt to link with him in this way.  Abandoning her washing, she led him along the path to the village.

                    *      *      *      * 

	Abinieri worked quickly with the compounds, mostly ordinary herbs and minerals, but it was pure magic to the assembled crowd.  The village had been without an Ovate since the battle of Shoulder Bare, and the Drui college relied heavily on traded potions from the surrounding towns.  But now Abinieri was here, things would be different.

	Sephanus was not an initiate, but her mother was teaching her the Ways, and Abinieri had been allowing her to watch him, throwing her the occasional wink from behind the great oak bench where the mixtures were prepared.

	She couldn't really fathom him.  He was not very attractive, but he had a certain glint in his eye that hinted at a whole world outside of the quiet village that Sephanus had known all her life.  If asked, she would deny that she found him interesting in any other way, but the way she clung to the end of the bench as he worked told another story.

	In the two weeks he had been working for the college, he had gained the respect of Liamh and the elders, as well as the old women who smacked their lips and cackled amongst themselves at his boyish flamboyance.  It was remarked that his cure for boils was second to none, and the farmers had been keen to use his experience with treating the beasts.  All in all, it was agreed that he was a welcome addition to the staff of the college and the village in general.

	Abinieri himself said very little, especially as he worked.  Sephanus was used to the silence, knowing a little of the thought processes that went into the preparation, and she would hover around the table long after the crowds had grown bored of the repetition

	It was late one evening when Abinieri prepared a final batch of Wookey Fennel, wrapped in dock leafs.  Sephanus was helping him tie the leaves into bundles, and it was becoming clear that she would make a fine assistant to him if he thought fit to ask for such a favour.  But he had another favour in mind.

	`Sephanus.  Can I ask you a question?'

	`Of course you can.  We are friends, are we not?'

	Abinieri took the last of the dock leaves from her, and held her hands lightly in his own.  `We work very well together, sweet Sephanus, don't you think so?'

	Sephanus laughed.  `Why yes, we do Abinieri.  You are very skilful, and I hope to learn a lot from you.'

	Abinieri bowed his head slightly at the compliment.  `You make this hard, my sweet.  What I mean is, you like me do you not?'

	`I like you very well', she said, smiling.

	`Well, what I mean is, what I mean to say is.'

	Suddenly she kissed him smartly on the lips and ran off through the tall corn.  `Goodnight Abinieri', she shouted as she vanished behind the stables, leaving him surprised and smiling.  He touched a finger to his lips as if to feel her touch there.  Laughing, he gathered up the leaves into a weave urn, and brushes clear the table with a branch of broom.

	A noise from behind one of the large clay pots behind him made him turn sharply.  `Who's there?'

	Somebody stood up, and it took Abinieri a moment to recognise the surly scowl of Asarte the Bard, junior musician in the college.  But Abinieri had no idea what he was doing there, spying on him.  For a moment the two men stood there in the fading light, facing one another but not speaking.

	Asarte raised an accusing finger.  `I saw you there, kissing with Sephanus!'

	Abinieri was taken aback.  `You saw?  What did you see?'

	`Sephanus is promised to me.  I have known her since she was born.  We don't need you coming in here and showing off with your potions and.'

	Suddenly a staff was rapped on the table, startling both men.  Salexis, the Drighten of the college and the most senior Drui in the village, stood there looking at them both.  She was tall and lithe, yet her expression was set and her black curly hair gave an impression of matriarchal strength.  Her magical powers were renowned, and her presence could be felt wherever she went.  `That is enough, Asarte.  It would be best if you were to go home now.'

	Asarte glared at Abinieri, but it was clear he was not going to argue with Salexis.  He gave a stag shoulder twitch as a final gesture towards Abinieri and loped off towards the huts.

	`I. thank you Salexis', Abinieri said.

	`It is nothing.'

	`Did you come to see me about anything?  College business perhaps, or something else?'

	`Yes, we have business to discuss, but I fear it has nothing to do with the college.'  She moved round the table, the stern expression gone, and Abinieri saw the attractive woman behind the fa‡ade.  `Please don't treat me as your superior.  I can be a friend too.  And you will need those in the next while, I fear.'

	Abinieri was puzzled but not worried.  He had been getting along nicely since joining the village, and he hadn't done anything to offend the elders.

	`You like young Sephanus?  She is pretty, certainly.'

	Abinieri flushed slightly.  `She is a fine woman, indeed.  Fair in face and clever too.  If she chose to do the training, she could make a fine Ovate.'

	Salexis smiled.  `All true.  But I see you don't need me to point out her finer features.'  She shook her hair from her face.  `And you are a fine young man, too.  You would make a handsome couple, don't you think?'

	She was teasing him, he knew.  But Abinieri was old enough to play her at her own game.  He grinned.  `And you heard that she belongs to another.'  His face grew serious.  `And you know as well as I do what my destiny is.'

	Salexis smiled and touched his arm gently.  `Yes, Abinieri.  I see we chose you well, the Sight is in you.  You are talking about your death and rise as Herne The Hunter.  It is written in the clouds, as you know.'

	Abinieri pulled away slightly, not unkindly.  `I know it.  But I am not ready.  I know it is my destiny, but I love this life of mine, and I mean to have some more of it before I'm through.'

	Salexis nodded in the dim light.  `I know it.  I have seen it.  But this will be a difficult time for you, and for Sephanus, if you decide to put it off for much longer.  I only speak to spare you pain.'

	Abinieri shook his head.  I cannot See as you can, I don't know what you're talking about.  And I don't want to.  I mean to stay and enjoy Sephanus as long as I can before. I need to go.  I think I love her.'

	Salexis relaxed, and smiled.  `As I thought. Stubborn and foolish, how I envy you.'  She laughed and her curls tickled her face.  `There will be pain for you.  You may beg for release.  But you will endure it, it is written in the clouds.  But there will be no talking you round, I can see that.'

	Abinieri laughed, and together they made their way back to the huts, and to the meal which was being prepared.

                    *      *      *      * 

As summer drew to a close, Abinieri's fame was spreading round the whole valley.  More often than not he was called out away from the village on some healing or medicating that was urgently needed.  In his absence, Sephanus was standing in as a dispenser of remedies at his table, a role she was proud of and which gave her some importance in the village.

Harvesting was well underway, and everyone who was available was out in the fields of wild wheat. The men and women were scything and the children gathering and baling for winter.  It was imperative that they got the harvest in before the rains, and everyone worked well into the dusk.

It was late in a warm sunny afternoon that Sephanus was roused from some sleepy pestling by a shout from the fields.  Someone was being carried between two men stripped to their waists.  With a gasp, Sephanus saw her old love Asarte, trews gashed from knee to hip, blood soaking the rough hemp cloth, being half-dragged to her table.

`Asarte, love.  What has happened?'

The older man supporting most of his weight laid him roughly on the table.  `Be quiet, girl.  He fell on one of the long cutters, the fool.  He needs stitched, and he needs a salve.  Where is Abinieri?'

Sephanus ignored his tone, as she probed the wound.  `Abinieri is away until tomorrow.  I can sew this, I know how to.  And I can get him something for the pain.'

`Well do it, girl.  Can we trust him to you?  We need to get back to the harvesting.'

Sephanus nodded absently, already dabbing at the wound with a piece of hemp cloth soaked in salve.  The men moved off back to the fields.  Asarte's eyes watched her as she worked.

`You called me love, Sephanus.  Can it be so?'

Sephanus looked at him sternly.  `Of course it can be so, we have been sweethearts since before I can remember.'  A sense of guilt coloured her strong feelings for him, but as he lay there bleeding, she remembered those times they had shared, and the dark night in the barley fields when they had pledged themselves to each other.

Asarte was quiet for a while.  `But what of this. Abinieri.  It is said around the village that you love him.'

Sephanus poured milky oil onto the wound from a small dark glass bottle.  How could she explain Abinieri to him?  If only she could love both of them, and not have to choose.  `This is difficult for me Asarte.  I like Abinieri a lot, but you and I are promised to each other, and I loved you long before I knew him.'

Asarte said nothing, but simply lay back as he saw Sephanus take the deadly looking stitching needle from her pouch.  He was not altogether convinced by her answer, but was glad she had brought up the small matter of their troths.  He would have felt very vulnerable having to fall back on that argument.  This way he felt that not all was lost.

`This will hurt, Asarte.  But to tide you over, here is a kiss to seal our marriage.'  She kissed him quickly on the lips as he lay there.
  
Asarte grinned, even as the needle went in.

*      *      *      *

	The main hut was filled with smoke, but it didn't seem to bother the dancers who reeled in the middle of the room.  Harvest over, Samhuinn festivities well underway.  The larder was packed with slaughtered beasts, and what couldn't be squeezed into the underground passage was being heartily devoured during the No-Time celebrations.

	Sephanus was the best dancer in the room, by far.  She had on a skirt made of many coloured strips, and a fine woven cotton blouson that showed her ample figure to the line of village men who waited to dance with her next.

	Asarte sat at a table swigging from a mead jug, his leg was healing well but he wasn't up to dancing.  The glances Sephanus shot him while dancing were enough to keep him going while every man in the village but him danced with his love.  He was happy: she was his.

	The band slowed and the dancers applauded.  Sephanus flicked her honey hair back from over her face, and wiped her brow, laughing at Asarte as he saluted her with his drink.  The smile on his face froze as the familiar figure of Abinieri stepped up to Sephanus and asked for the next dance.

	Sephanus had been trying to withdraw from Abinieri slightly, but the more she tried to gently disentangle herself from him, the more he seemed to adore her.  At last she had settled into the daily routine of preparing salves, and tried to speak as little as she could to him.  She knew she was hurting him.  And it hurt her too, she still liked him a lot, and valued him as a close and dear friend.  She couldn't hurt him.

	She bowed slightly to accept his request for a dance.  He took her by the hand as the dance started again, and she felt the old stirrings that had made her kiss him that night.

	`You dance very well, my dear. for an Ovate.'

	Abinieri laughed.  `And you prepare salves very well, for a washer-woman.'

	She laughed back, as he turned her in time to the music.  `I hope you didn't think me too forward when I kissed you.  I meant it as something between. friends.'  She hoped he would pick up her intention, and not make her spell out the cold fact of her betrothal to Asarte.  He had winced every time she mentioned Asarte, so she had begun to skirt the subject now.  She had no desire to have to tell him she was going to marry Asarte and spoil his happy mood.

	But he was having none of it.  `We are more than just friends Sephanus.  We both know that.'

	She nodded, and smiled.  He was right, they were more than just friends.  She felt that as much as he did.  But Asarte was real, and he had been there for so long and her feeling for him were just as strong as they had always been.  How can it be that she loved them both in different ways? 

	`We are more than friends, Abinieri.  Let's leave it at that for tonight.'  She winced inwardly at her cowardice.  He deserved to know the truth, but the dance was hypnotic, and his dark eyes smiled at her and the room spun around them.  And she loved him, and couldn't bear to hurt him, even if it meant hurting him later.  For tonight, she told herself, he could enjoy her as if she were his own.

	The dance finished, but there was another.  From the corner of her eye, she saw Asarte grow restless and quarrelsome at the table.  Once again she felt the pang of guilt for both men.  The both loved her, and she loved them both.  Why did she have to choose?

	Abinieri noticed her nervous glances at Asarte's table and guided the dance to the other side of the hall where he spun her neatly onto a stool, and took the other one himself.  The breathed heavily and laughed for a few moments.

	`If looks were daggers, then your boyfriend would have killed me tonight, my sweet.  Have you not told him about us yet?'

	Sephanus look at him, shocked at his directness.  `Of course he knows that we are friends.  Everyone knows.'  She glanced coyly at him to see if that answer would suffice.

	Abinieri took her hands across the table.  He always found her answers replied to a different question than the one he had asked.  But he loved her, and he heard what he wanted to hear.  The music has slowed, and the old men had started to smoke the root, filling the room with the deep aromatic opiate smoke.  She was beautiful beyond words to him.

	Nervously, Abinieri asked his question.  `Sephanus, I know we have only known each other for a short while.  But.'  He glanced around nervously.  `Will you promise to be mine?'

	Then it was Sephanus who grew nervous.  `Please don't ask me that, Abinieri.  Don't spoil the night.'

	`Be mine, Sephanus.  Promise me.  If you care for me at all, then promise me that someday you will be mine.'

	What was she to do?  Tell him about her marriage to Asarte?  That is what she should do, but the lethargy and hesitation that had stopped her uttering the words before then gave momentum to continuing the deception.  She could put him straight later, tell him he was mistaken.  Yes, later.

	She nodded to him, and closed her eyes as she saw his face light up with delight.  For the want of a small piece of cruelty, she was prolonging his agony, and she hated herself for loving him so much yet too little.
	
*      *      *      * 

Salexis did not usually tut, but Abinieri was tossing the small wooden blocks around with a disdain that they certainly did not deserve.

`And what new game is this you have devised with the Oghams?  Tell me so I can teach the students.'

Abinieri looked up balefully from the table in the dark corner of the college hut.  `I thought I had mastered the scrying, but I doubt everything I ever knew.'  He gathered up the small rectangular blocks, each made of a different scared wood, and began dropping them into a dark drawstring sack.

Salexis nodded.  `You see something that you do not like, I can see it in your brow.'

`I don't like it, and I don't believe it.'

Salexis took the sack of Oghams from him.  `The wood never betrays us.  Even if you do not like what you see, there it lies, for all to see like the sky and the stars.'
She smoothed the reading circle on the table and tossed the bag, holding onto the drawstring as the wooden block slipped easily out and landed in a haphazard arrangement in the reading mat.

	`I don't want to look', said Abinieri, folding his arms and looking away.  `I have thrown them four times already and each time the same pattern.'  He glanced quickly at the reading mat.  `And once again, I see.'

	But Salexis had begun the casting:

		`Before me stands Eriu in Fal
		 On my right stands Nuada in Gor
		 On my left stands Dagda in Mur
		 And at my back stands Lugh in Fin

		 I call upon the three Brigids
		 To guide my hand and the Ogham-fews
		 I call upon the three Morrighna
		 To make the fifths good and true'

	To finish the brief charging, she made a magical gesture that Abinieri recognised as the Druid cast.  As an Ovate, he knew of the invocation, but was not qualified to use it himself.  Perhaps Salexis could make more of the casting than he had done.

	She peered at the arrangement.  `Salix in Mide. This is the willow tree, tree of deception.  Mide is the forfedha of focus and the here and now, the problem at hand.  The willow indicates that there is something you do not know, and a woman is the key to unlocking the secret.  This lesson may be unpleasant.'

	She moved onto the other Oghams.  `Idad in Seis.  This is the yew tree, tree of transformation.  Seis is the forfedha of harmony and space, it indicated the solution to the problem of the Mide.  The yew indicates a change which may be unpleasant for you, but which is a part of your essence.'

	Her hand darted to another stave.  `Ailm in Fis.  This is the fir tree, also a transformation, though this one more beneficial.  Fis is the forfedha of learning, and the spiral of improvement.  This indicates what the outcome of the solution shown in Seis will be.  The fir is the tree of discovery and also of kingship.  This is good.'

	Quickly, she moved onto the next.  `Edad in Cath.  This is the aspen tree, tree of overcoming difficulty.  It denotes the force of your inner nature.  Cath is the forfedha of conflict and resistance, and indicates that which may stop you embarking on the solution in Seis.  Together with the transformation fews, this means that you yourself invoke the transformation.

	And then onto the last Ogham few.  `Beithe in Blath.  This is the birch tree, the tree of new beginnings.  The Blath is the forfedha of manifestation, and shows the final outcome of the course of action you take.  It denotes the throwing away of the old.'

	Abinieri looked at her face, exploring for the same ideas that he had read in the fews when he had thrown them.
She was looking at the angles between the staves, the lines on the reading mat, and the general pattern of the wood.  Divination was much more than ascribing bare meanings to pieces of wood on a cloth.

	Eventually he interrupted her scrutiny.  `What do you see for me Salexis?  Do you see it?'

	Salexis nodded.  `I see it, Abinieri.'  She gathered up the staves and slipped them into the sack.  `I see what you saw, I think.  Tell me what the Ogham told you, and I will tell you what they told me.'

	Abinieri gritted his teeth.  `That Sephanus loves another, and that I shall never marry her in this life.'

	Salexis nodded, and Abinieri's face dropped.  `Not only that.  There is the matter of your. initiation.  It is told here too.'

	`I don't care about that.  How can you go on about that when the woman I want to marry is carrying on behind my back?'

	Salexis closed her eyes.  `Things are never as simple as that.'

	But Abinieri was becoming enraged.  He stood up and began pacing.  `She promised me that she would be mine!  She promised herself to me that night of the No-time!  How can she love another?  How can this be so, Salexis?'

	But Salexis simply shook her head.  `I warned you a long time ago that there would be hurt for you before you came out the other side of the waterfall.'

	`Oh, I don't want to hear it.  She lied to me!  And I am going to make sure she knows about it.'

	Salexis stood up.  `Please, Ovate, control yourself.  This won't help.'

	But his whirlwind had blown out of the hut.

*      *      *      *

He found her by the stream where they had first met.  He watched her for a moment, as she sat beside the stream as it bubbled slowly through the glade.  She was beautiful, but he could see she was troubled, and had no doubt come here to think over something.  For a moment his intention faltered.

But then she lifted a pendant that had been around her neck, but hidden from view under her blouson.  It was Asarte's guild emblem.  He must have given it to her.

His hands continually clasped and unclasped as he walked towards her.  Hurt and anger and the gnawing sting of tears kept back by nothing more than grim determination made the few paces to the river bank stretch into a mile.  She did not notice him until he was almost upon her.

`Abinieri.', she dropped the pendant back down the front of the blouson.  

`Don't bother to hide it, girl.  It means nothing to me any more which of the village boys you are running around with.'

Sephanus did not say anything.  Abinieri could not even bring himself to look at her, and so did not notice the wetness that formed in her eyes at his words.  He kicked at the rushes beside the river.

`I came to tell you that your services are no longer required at the salving.'  He shook his head slowly.  `You just don't come up to scratch, girl.  I'm sorry.'

Sephanus rose and come to him.  `What is it, my love?  Why are you acting so strangely?'  She tried to take his hands, but he pulled them away.  `Tell me, Abineiri, tell me what is wrong!'

Abinieri turned to face her, a tear escaping from his eye.  He reached for the thong around her neck and pulled Asarte's guild emblem out.  `I hope that you two are very happy.'  He dropped the pendant and wiped his fingers in disgust.

Sephanus closed her eyes.  `I promised him, Abinieri, long ago.'

`Like you promised me.'

Sephanus turned towards him.  `I'm sorry for that.  I really am.  You asked me if I loved you, and I told you the truth, I do love you.  But I cannot be yours.'

He shook his head in disgust.

`But if you love me then why do you seek to hurt me like this?'

`Hurt you?' he said incredulously.  `Me hurt you?  I don't think you understand what I was giving up for you.'  Turning, he looked her in the eyes with a dark distaste, before striding off into the trees, leaving her to clutch at her sides.

*      *      *      * 

Salexis rested her hands on his shoulders as he sat slumped at the great table in the main college building.  He had been crying, but Salexis hadn't intruded on him until darkness had fallen on the village.  His tears had dried, but his shoulders shuddered every so often, and she had stood for a long time before speaking.

`You know what this means, Abinieri.  There is no coming back.'

Abinieri shrugged.  `There is nothing for me here, and it's my destiny.  You saw it yourself.'  He knew he was being melodramatic, but he had put all of his happiness in his future with Sephanus, and now it was gone, he felt like he had nothing.

Salexis shook her head.  `You know yourself that the Ogham shows only what is likely, given the way things are at the time the fews are thrown.  Nothing is set in stone.'

Abinieri stood up and faced Salexis.  `The deed is done.  Tell me what I must do.'

Salexis closed her eyes, and began to speak as if she was remembering a passage from a book.

`The circles of the five souls intersect at certain stages for all of us, but for a few, the transformation from the tir to the magh, from the earth to the spirit plane, can be manifested by an extreme act of will.

`Doing so moves the mortal from the fein to the enaid: from flesh and bone, to earth and stone.  Nothing of the original body is retained, it is consumed in the fire.  A cord is tied around the neck of the mortal, and when life is extinguished, a pyre is prepared and the cadaver consumed.

`After five days have passed, the fein is reborn in the place of final resting.  The mortal chooses the identity and personality of the spirit at the time of inculcation.

Abinieri nodded.  The text was as familiar to him as it was to Salexis.  The prospect was not attractive, and the responsibility of the role he would incorporate was considerable.  The transformation was frightening, both painful and grisly.

Salexis took his by the shoulders.  `Please do not do this simply because the girl rejected you.  You can love again, and take up this ploughshare at another time.'

But Abinieri was numb.  `I will never love again.  Why wait another forty years in this life?  As Herne I will be too busy to forget.  I will concern myself with every fallen leaf and every crawling worm.  I will have no time to think.  And that is what I want.'

Salexis nodded, and dried her eyes.  `The elders will call for you tomorrow evening at dusk.  Be ready.'  She embraced him for a long moment, and then left him to his thoughts.

*      *      *      * 

It was growing dark in the village, yet the main clearing was busier than usual.  No more than once a lifetime did someone volunteer to be inculcated.  To the ordinary people of the village, it was a rare sight to watch the last nervous minutes of a man who would become a god.

Abinieri busied himself with the trivialities of binding and labelling fresh herbal throws.  The job was dull and it dulled the mind.  He knew only too well what was ahead of him, and though his jaw was set to it, his body feared pain and death as much as any other.

The crowd murmured as Sephanus approached the salving table and stood before it as a defendant at a judgement.  Abinieri was binding with his eyes closed and did not see her or hear her, until she spoke.

`Abinieri, my love.'

He stopped binding and opened his eyes.  They stayed like that for a long while, both sets of eyes twinkling in the setting day.  At last he spoke.

`Sephanus, I said you were no longer required at the salving table.'  His words were stern but his face broke down at the end of the sentence.  `It was nice of you to come see me, before the ceremony.'

`Don't do it, Abinieri.  Please.  Don't sacrifice yourself to this because of me.'

He shook his head.  `You flatter yourself, Sephanus.  Yes, you hurt me. I cannot deny my heart.  But this has always been my destiny.  It is why I became an Ovate.'

She leaned forward over the table until their faces were almost touching.  `Please, Abinieri.  I will do anything to stop you doing this.  I will even break off my marriage to Asarte.  If you will promise not to do this.'

Abinieri smiled and touched her cheek with his smooth clever hand.  `I love you Sephanus.  I always will.'

The crowd, who had been clucking appreciatively at the public show, parted as the Bards began to blow the horns to warn of the elders.  The dry rattle of the horns died away as the three elders of the College, resplendent in their stylised head-masks approached the table.

Liamh, the College elder, moved towards Abineri, who stood frozen at his approach.  `Do not be afraid Abinieri.  Remember that you must go willingly or the inculcation will fail.'

Abinieri relaxed, the familiar voice of the elder cast off some of his fear.  He walked around the table, past Sephanus, and led the procession to the far end of the village, where the ground started to rise again before plunging into the forest.  Here, an ancient oak tree, with a veining of mistletoe on its hind stood sentinel to the burial ground.

They stopped under the left bough of the tree.  Liamh waited until the villagers had arrived before starting his speech.

`Every so often, there is born a man or woman who has a destiny that is apart from the rest of us.  While most of us live our lives and die with our families around us, these special ones enjoy a special death, and a rising into the kingdom of the gods.  Abinieri is one of these.

Two masked elders began to bind his hands and feet with a golden cord.  Unseen by him, an elder passed a thicker coarser cord over the bough of the tree.  The cord had a noose of much finer rope at the end of it, and this was passed over Abinieri's head.

Liamh continued.  `Think not of the death you are about to see, but of the immortal life he will lead after.'  He turned to Abinieri, who was calm and resigned.  `Is there anything you would like to say, Abinieri, before we proceed?'

Abinieri looked up soulfully.  `I am ready.  I just need to say one more thing to Sephanus.'

A figure tore from the crowd and embraced the bound Abinieri.  Sephanus was distraught, realising the finality of what was about to happen.  `Abinieri, I beg you to stop this now.'  Tears streamed down her face and she wrestled fruitlessly with the bindings.

Abinieri smiled, and leaned close to her ear to whisper.  `At your wedding, I shall be with you.  Now be gone.  Remember I loved you.'

Sephanus backed away, into the waiting arms of Asarte, who tried to console her as best he could.  Her sobs were drowned out as the drums started beating from the assembled players.

Abinieri took one last look around the grove, at the people who he had come to know, and the world he was about to depart from.  He nodded to Liamh and bowed his head.

At a sign from the elders, the horns wailed out one last time, and a group of assembled men heaved on the cord, which burned a groove into the flaky bark of the mighty oak, as it hoisted the perfectly still Abinieri to the spirit world.  Almost at once, the struggling began, but as the seconds passed it became less.  The writhing was no more than the final shudders of a young body as it gave up the final breaths of life.  Liamh doused his struggling body with splashes from an oil cruet.  It was over within a minute.

*      *      *      * 

	Five days had not taken the chill from the village.  Everyone had been shocked at the ceremony, at the cold blooded way the elders had taken the life of the young Ovate.  They had seen executions many times, but Abinieri had become a friendly face in the village, and even though they paid lip service to the religion of the Elders, most thought the ceremony a useless waste of a young life.

	Salexis stood at the edge of the clearing, puffing on a long carved bone pipe.  She stared into the forest, the way she usually did when seeking visions.  Although she understood the mechanism, Abinieri's death has shocked her human side, and she had been relying on the salacious herb over the past few evenings to still her troubled mind.

	As she drifted off into her herb-induced trance, she felt the wind blow through the trees, bringing with them the scents and sounds of the forest.  The village behind her contracted until it vanished, and she was alone in the deep verdant greenwood.  It was growing dark, and a mist drifted in through the hollow, but Salexis could not move.

	 She lifted her arms a moment before they solidified into wood and bark.  Her hair expanded and thickened into successive waves of drooping branches and leaves.  Her legs solidified into a single trunk and her feet coiled and burrowed into the ground, taking root there in the damp soil.  An owl swooped in from the gathering dark and landed on her left shoulder.  Time passed.

	Through the mist, lit from a low moon, came the young figure of Abinieri.  Salexis wanted to cry out in joy at seeing him, but could not make a sound.  The owl hooted as if it was her own voice, and the noise made Abinieri turn.  He smiled at the sally tree, which he recognised at once.

	`Salexis, my old tutor.'  He examined the tree with a critical smile.  `I am glad you decided to come and see me.'

	She did not see his lips move as he spoke, and as she tried to speak, she heard the owl on her shoulder hoot.  `Abinieri, I am glad to see you. whole.  This is a disconcerting way to communicate.  I expected you to be a tree and me to be a person.'

	`You are in my world now.  In yours, I am invisible to you.  In mine, you take the form of the spirit you most represent.  For you it is a sally tree, and a fine specimen you are.'

	`How are you, Abinieri?' the owl hooted.

	`I am Herne.  I am Hunter and Protector of the forest.  The body you see is that of the person I once was.  I am no longer just the Abinieri I was.  All that he was is still a part of me, but I am more than that now.  In time you will understand.  I will show you.'

	Suddenly, against the backlit mist, pictures began to form, and Herne began to explain what his role in the forest was.  Swathes of trees shot up from saplings to crowning glory and died before her eyes, hundreds of years flashing by in an instant.  Colonies of burrowing and flying and crawling animals rose and fell.  Deer rutted and ate and were eaten.  The bear and the wolf came and went with the butterfly and the fairy moss and the toadstool.  Each and every form of life was under his protection.

	Salexis understood what she had only suspected before.  Abinieri had become the life and consciousness of the forest and every animal and plant that dwelt within it.  He was Herne, and through day and night, winter and summer, he would be here as long as the forest was here.  The magnitude of his responsibility made her at once envious and relieved that she was destined to a lesser role.

	`I understand now, Herne.  I see what you have become.'

	Herne nodded.  But do not think that I am no longer the man you once knew.  I still remember.  And I wish you tell Sephanus that I am happy, and that I will not forget my promise.'  His figure seemed to be receding into the distance, though Salexis could not see him walking.

	`I shall, Herne.  And I will return here to speak with you time and again.'  Her speaking owl alighted and swooped off into the woods after Herne.

	`So be it, Salexis' His voice was very faint now, his figure no more than a slight darkening of the mist in the distance between the trees.  `I will be with you, all.'

	Salexis blinked, and realised she once again had eyes to blink with.  She lowered her arms, and took a draw from the pipe, which was still smouldering neatly.  The mist was clearing, and the sounds of the village behind her once again intruded on her silence.  Smiling, she turned and rejoined the people.

*      *      *      * 

	Late autumn was the time of marriages in the wooded valley of the Knee.  Sephanus waited, with her hair trained back into a high bun, and curls picked painfully down to hang at her brow.  He dress was plain white with a knotwork hem of green and honey leafery.

	Asarte, his leg healing well under his green hemp trews, had on a new leather tabard over woven cream shirt.  With a tear in his eye, he took her hand at the Yew tree, and they both turned to face Salexis as she said the final words over their handfasting.

	`We have seen these two young people swear their love for each other.  By the power of the land, and the sky, by the salt and the stone, and the air and the sea, I say them husband and wife.'

	The crowd cheered, and Asarte and Sephanus gazed at each other, hands held tight.  Asarte put his arm across her shoulder and held her hand with his other hand.  For a moment, Salexis appeared to be in a trance, as she watched something she thought she recognised in the woodland behind the village.

	Suddenly an owl swooped down from the high pine trees behind the village across the wedding party and landed on the shoulder of Salexis.  She was as surprised as the rest of them, but she recovered enough mystical reserve to smile mysteriously at the crowd, and give the impression that the owl was a normal visitor to such occasions.

	Sephanus and Asarte turned, hand in hand, to face their families, who rushed forward to greet them and embrace them in their new life together.

Late autumn leaves began to fall on the crowd, sprinkling them with a happy russet and bronze scatter.  Lost for a moment in the embraces of their families, Sephanus and Asarte did not see the owl lean towards Salexis and whisper in her ear:

	`Some day, I shall need a Huntress.'