rincess Eilan is the daughter of Rian, priestess of the holy isle of Avalon, and Prince Coelius of Camulodunum in Brittannia, circa 300 A.D. When her mother dies giving birth to Eilan, her father raises her in the Roman manner. Then war threatens Camulodunum, and Princess Eilan is sent to Avalon to learn the ways of the priestesses of the Old Religion, the pagan beliefs that in that time period still hold sway in much of the British Isles.
Hidden behind the eldritch mists of magical Avalon, Eilan grows into early womanhood as a priestess of the Old Religion. But then she becomes attracted to Constantius, a Roman officer with ambitions to greatness. Defying the orders of her aunt Ganeda, the Lady of Avalon, Eilan takes the place of another priestess and partners with Constantius in a sexual rite destined to create a child who will restore Brittannia to its former greatness. As a result of Eilan's disobedience, Ganeda banishes her from Avalon and strips her of the power to penetrate the mist that conceals the isle from secular eyes. Eilan takes comfort in knowing that she will bear the child who is the hope of Brittannia. She becomes a good citizen of the Roman empire and a good wife.
When she bears Constantius a son, he is named Constantine. And in time, though Eilan suffers much loss and sorrow in the journey, her son does become Constantine the Great, emperor over all Rome and all its territories.
But something is wrong. The child of prophecy was supposed to lead Brittannia back to its old ways, but Constantine has become convinced that the new religion of Christianity is the one true religion. Aging Eilan, the priestess of Avalon, now Flavia Helena Augusta, must decide whether she will convert as the mother of the most powerful Christian in the Roman empire, or whether she will risk her life to defy her beloved son.
Bradley's legacy looms too large
Perhaps the most successful single work by the late Marion Zimmer Bradley was her novel The Mists of Avalon, a surprising and insightful woman-centered revisiting of the Arthurian legends. That novel continues to be popular more than a decade after its publication. It skillfully plays out the clash between worldviews that in the British Isles replaced the old religion with Christianity.
Priestess of Avalon revisits this territory by imagining what may have lain behind the legend of Flavia Helena Augusta, the British mother to a great Roman king, a woman who reportedly performed miracles. Unfortunately, the world lost Marion Zimmer Bradley almost two years ago.
The first pages of Priestess of Avalon tell a story of their own. The copyright is owned by the Bradley estate, but the authorship is Diana L. Paxson's. Although well written, the novel generally has the hurried quality that can afflict work-for-hire: a story of the scope of this novel is more suited to an epic length, but Priestess of Avalon comes in at just under 500 pages. The
characters rarely come fully alive. Much of the action happens "offstage" and in recounted narrative, giving the book a cool, distant feel.
Toward the final third of Priestess of Avalon, the conflicts between Eilan and her increasingly despotic son do begin to be engaging, but it may be too late to draw some readers in. The novel is an intriguing example of fiction that weaves oral and historical records to produce a convincing story, but beside its predecessor, it feels lacking. Sadly, it's rarely a good idea for one writer to try to enliven a dead colleague's vision, no matter how vital that original vision or how strong the connection between the two writers may have been.
