When it came time to do another review column, I perused my bookcases for the perfect Beltane book. I considered some, discarded them, and only at the end of it all did I realize that the very book I was reading, Irene Radford's Guardian of the Balance, was the book to cover. Beltane serves as the origin and is a reference point throughout the novel, the fertility rites evolving slightly each time as the main character fights to return some sort of spiritual meaning to what has degenerated to lustful advantage taken of the blessing of the fields by the Queen of the May and the winner of the athletic games. Beltane is also the time where true lovers meet, sharing a single afternoon or night, a time savoured when they part and must remain distanced evermore. In effect, Beltane is a sacrifice as well as a blessing for these characters.

Guardian of the Balance is the first in the Merlin's Descendents series, the second of which is also available in hardcover. The main character is Arylwren, called Wren, who embodies the balance between magic and politics, whose existence keeps the old gods alive and who marks the gateway between worlds. Daughter of the Merlin and the Lady of Avalon, she is conceived at Beltane during the fertility rites. Wren travels with her father as a young child, learning his Druidry, developing her own connection to the land, priestess of its mysteries, trained at Avalon by its fading Lady but denied the healing gift only the Lady can pass on before she dies.

The most interesting aspect of this story is that Wren is not a consummate sorceress, nor is she serene, beautiful or the perfect priestess. She is human, flawed: she is weak, she rages against what her father the Merlin does to manipulate the people around her, she performs her magicks for the goddess Dana but walks unaware into traps and sorcery. On the other hand, she has a stubborn will to live, the honour to make promises and keep them under the most difficult of conditions, and the vision to support Arthur through his childhood and adulthood, even though their love cannot be realized. It is the story of one woman's struggle to be priestess, mother, chatelaine, daughter, and friend in a time of political upheaval and spiritual disturbance.

There are familiar characters, but portrayed in ways different from the stereotypes. Radford paints each character as human, tracing a development to the point they have reached. No one is pure good or pure evil. Of the familiar characters, Nimue is Wren's most immediately identifiable enemy, a reject from Avalon before it faded away with the death of the last Lady, demon-conjurer and power-greedy. Furious at Wren's marriage to her father, Nimue vows to steal Merlin in return, and works in concert with him to ruin the wedding between Arthur and Guinevere. Morgaine, a dark self-contained young woman, is the mistress of evil arts determined to revenge herself for the loss of her father's kingdom and the man she fell in love with - Arthur. Guinevere is a sterile child of mortal and faerie, a failed experiment of the fae in their efforts to maintain a place in an increasingly less hospitable world. And then, there is the Merlin.

The Merlin too is very human, with desires and visions and the need to keep Britain safe driving him at every moment. Perhaps the other most fascinating aspect to Radford's novel is that the Christian archbishop Dyfrig is the Merlin's twin brother. This two-sided coin is used with great effect, as the reader sees each of them through Wren's eyes. In the cathedral on her reluctant wedding day, after the Merlin performs the handfasting ceremony at dawn, Wren looks up at the priest's face to see that of her father's, and for several chapters she is not convinced that the Merlin and the archbishop - spiritual leaders of two religions as well as two of Arthur's advisors - are not the same person.

Wren spends much of the novel confused by her feelings, her father's lies, and the apparent disregard the Christians have for the old ways, so evident to her. Her confusion stands in for the reader's, her struggles to work with the will of the Goddess yet against her father are our struggles to balance the two extremes of loyalty, family and elemental power. Although Wren admits that she is weak, she fights and overcomes, as well as blocking misuse of power, whatever its origins. The reader can identify with her immediately, tossed by the storms of Druid politics and secular politics, scrambling to carve out a place for herself in the grand scheme of things, to create a life for herself, to have love and laughter in a time when all seems poised to crumble under Saxon invasion as well as petty infighting.

Sympathy is created for the Merlin as well. Tempted from celibacy at a Beltane ritual by the Goddess incarnate in the Lady of Avalon, the Merlin dared trespass on his god's command. The action was granted only by the gods agreeing amongst themselves to create a fulcrum for power in the issue from the union. Blessed/cursed with divinatory abilities that grant him visions scried from water or fire, the Merlin sees great triumphs and crushing disasters for Arthur, disguised as an orphaned fosterling who grows up with Wren as well as the traditional Kay, Bedewyr and Lancelot. His punishment for Dana's command that he lie with the Lady of Avalon that Beltane night is to never lie with woman again, and the gods ensure this by marking his genitalia with the Druid tattoos he already wears on his forearms.

All in all, Guardian of the Balance is a fresh retelling of the Matter of Britain, and an interesting corollary to The Mists of Avalon that we looked at last issue. Irene Radford has crafted an original tale set in a realistic world, and has made it interesting, engaging and touching. I look forward to reading the next tale of Merlin's Descendents.

Guardian of the Balance: Merlin's Descendents Book One by Irene Radford. Paperback, 591 pages. Daw Books: 1999.

(c) A. Murphy-Hiscock. Originally published in Montreal's Magickal Circle May 2000