The Forest House (57 page)

Bendeigid swayed, his face contorting with the agony of a man who sees all his certainties crumbling. “If what you say is truth,” he cried, “let the Goddess show us a sign before I give you living to the fire!”

Even as he spoke, it seemed to Eilan that a great thunder crashed through her head; startled by the weight of it, she felt herself slip to her knees. Her father reached out, but she was sliding down a long tunnel away from him. Her heartbeat was a fading drum; then it ceased suddenly, and she was free.

So the Goddess struck me down after all,
Eilan thought with an odd clarity.
But it was Her mercy, not Her wrath!

Far below she could see people bending over her motionless body. This was the ending that had awaited her since she had lain in Gaius's arms, but she had delayed it long enough to build a bridge between her people and his. Two of the Druids were holding her father upright; he was still shouting, but the people were turning from him with frightened faces, beginning to stream away down the hill.

She saw the priests lifting the flesh she had abandoned and carrying it to the pyre on which Gaius was already burning. Then she turned away from that lesser light to the radiance that was opening before her, brighter than the fire, more lovely than the moon.

CAILLEAN SPEAKS

When I arrived at the Forest House the following evening, all the Samaine fires had burned out and only ashes remained. It took some time to find anyone who could give me a coherent account of what had happened. Miellyn had not been seen; some people thought she had died trying to shield Eilan. Eilidh had been killed in the fighting that followed the sacrifice. Dieda was dead also; she lay in the sanctuary, and it was clear that she had fallen by her own hand.

There was certainly no sense to be got from Bendeigid and, except for those Druids who had stayed to tend him, the priesthood had scattered. So, thank the gods, had the warriors who had gathered for the festival. But I found that the folk who remained were eager to obey me, for I was the closest thing they had to a High Priestess now.

I moved through the tumult, giving orders with a calm that astonished me, for I dared not give way to a grief that might prove measureless. Yet there had to be some meaning to all this; a life—or a death—must not be wasted.

The following day I was awakened by the news that a party of Romans had requested an interview with the High Priestess. I went out and saw Macellius Severus with his secretary behind him and another man whom they said was the father of Gaius's Roman wife, sitting their horses under a weeping autumn sky. I was impressed by the fact that he had come here without a detachment of soldiers to back him. But, then, his son had been brave enough too, at the end.

It was hard to face Macellius, knowing the answer to the question he did not quite dare to ask me, and realizing that I could never tell him how his boy had died. By now the most amazing rumors were flying about the countryside. Gaius had died as a British Year-King, and though some thought he was a Roman, the only people who knew his name had a powerful reason for keeping silence.

Disorganized the Romans might be, but they still had the force to drown the countryside in blood if they found proof that a Roman officer had been sacrificed on that hill. But of course there was no body, only a pile of ashes mingled with the embers of the Samaine fire.

As they were leaving, Macellius turned to me, and I saw that hope was not quite dead in his eyes. “There was a boy living in the Forest House,” he said. “They called him Gawen. I believe he is…my grandson. Can you tell me where he is now?”

This time, at least, I could answer truthfully that I did not know, for Gawen had not been seen since Samaine Eve, the day that his nurse and Senara had also disappeared.

For it was not until the third day afterward that Senara came creeping back, her young face haggard with tears, followed by a lanky lad who looked about him with troubled eyes.

“She died for my sake,” Senara sobbed when we told her what had happened to Eilan. “She condemned herself to save me—and her child.”

My throat was aching, but I forced myself to speak calmly. “Then her sacrifice must not be wasted. Will you take the vows and serve the Goddess in her place, now that she is gone?”

“I cannot, I cannot,” wailed Senara. “It would be a sin, for I am a Nazarene. Father Petros is moving into Deva. He will let me stay in his hermitage, and I will spend the rest of my days in prayer!”

I blinked, for suddenly it seemed to me that I could see that small house in the forest surrounded by many others. In time, I thought, more female hermits would gather around her. And what I saw then has indeed come to pass, for this was one of the first of the pious sisterhoods that now serve the people as the Forest House did then; but that was many years in the future. Did Eilan foresee it? Either way, the younger woman had played her part. Senara might refuse to become High Priestess of Vernemeton, but in a sense she was still Eilan's heir.

“Will you take Gawen to his grandfather?” Senara asked. “I cannot keep him with me once I have taken Christian vows.”

Which one?
I wondered wryly, and then I realized that I was unwilling to surrender the boy to either of those old men, both still prisoned by the hatred of a dying past.

“Gawen…” I looked at him, and saw a creature neither Roman nor Briton, neither boy nor man, standing on the threshold of possibility. In the end, Eilan had died so that this child might live in a new world. “I am going back to the Summer Country, where the mists roll around the vale that they call Afallon. Will you come with me?”

“Is that the Summerland?” he asked. “They tell me my mother has gone there.”

“Not quite.” My eyes filled. “But close to it, some would say.”

He looked around him and shivered, and I thought how hard it must be for him, not yet really knowing what he had lost. Almost as hard as it was for me, who understood all too well.

Then he looked up at me, and I saw a spirit that resembled neither grandfather, nor his parents either, looking out of his eyes.

“Very well. I will come with you to Afallon.”

 

Here at the heart of the Summer Country I sometimes wonder why of all who played such a part in this story, I alone have been spared. I know that I am only beginning to see the great design in all of this. Can it be that Eilan's child, who represents two great strains which have gone into the making of our people, will be the founder of a line from which their savior shall one day spring?

I have not been told. I have not even the counsel of the Merlin, although Eilan said once that he had spoken to her of her destiny. There must be some pattern. I know only that it is from the Eagle and the Dragon, not the Raven of vengeance, that a defender shall come for our land, and perhaps the Merlin will take flesh to aid that hero in his day…

Here in the Summer Country, where the ringstones shadow the mighty Tor and the promise of power remains, I await the outcome of the tale.

Marion Zimmer Bradley
was the bestselling author of
The Mists of Avalon, The Forest House, Lady of Avalon,
and
The Firebrand,
as well as the immensely popular
Darkover
series and numerous other science fiction and fantasy works. She died in 1999.