The Forest House (14 page)

Eilan did not look up. "For him I would bear it," she said, her voice just audible.

"Yes, in your madness, I believe you would," her father said harshly. "Youth is ever ready to defy the world. But our blood is not traitor blood, Eilan. For every moment you betrayed your kin with him, the ravens would peck at your heart in secret. His voice softened, "What is more, it is not you alone but all our kindred who would be forced to break one bond after another.

"Eilan, this you must understand; I bear no grudge against Gawen; he was a guest in my house, and it were to chop logic to say he lied to me when none had asked his true name. If grudge there might be, it would only be that he worked in secret to set you against your kin."

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Eilan's words were all but inaudible. "He dealt honorably and uprightly with both me and you."

"Have I questioned that?" responded Bendeigid. "But he who asks pledges himself to abide the answer.

They asked me fairly and honorably for your hand; fairly and straightforwardly I answered. And there's an end of it."

She said in a strangled voice, "Another man less honorable might have so dealt with me that you would have been grateful to be rid of me."

Black anger suffused her father's face and for the first time in memory she feared him. He jerked her towards him, and struck her - though not hard - across the mouth.

"No more —" he said. "No
more!
Had I slapped you more often when you were a child, I should not now need to strike you for that shameless speech."

Eilan sank down on the bench as he released her; ten days ago she would have wept if her father spoke so to her; now she felt that nothing would ever make her shed another tear.

He said emphatically, "You will marry no Roman while I am above ground; no, nor after it either if I have my way. And if you should tell me that things had so gone with you that you must marry this son of half-Roman traitors, or give me a bastard to call me grandsire, no man in all the length and breadth of Britain would blame me if I drowned you with my own hands. Spare me that blush of modesty, Daughter, you had none a moment ago!"

Eilan would have preferred to face her father on her feet, but her knees were trembling so that she could not rise. "Can you really think such shame of me?"

"It was not I who first named it," her father retorted. Then his voice softened. "Child, child," he admitted,

"I spoke in anger. You are a good girl, and my true daughter, I ask your forgiveness. Now, enough of this kind of talk. You ride north tomorrow; your sister Mairi will have need of a kinswoman, for her child will be born soon, and at this season your mother cannot be spared. It seems all too likely now that her husband, Rhodri, was captured by Romans when he went off after the levies. So even if all had gone
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otherwise, this would be no season to be offering me a Roman son-in-law."

Eilan nodded dumbly. Bendeigid put his arm around her, and said gently, "Wiser I am and older than you, Eilan. The young see for themselves alone. Do you think I have not seen you pining? I thought it was only that you missed Dieda, but my main anger at this half-Roman bastard is that he has given you such pain."

She nodded, standing stiffly in his embrace, feeling a world away. He had said that a raven would peck at her heart if she married Gaius, and she had thought it only a poetic way of speaking. But now she realized that he had spoken sober truth, for the pain in her heart was as sharp, as if indeed a raven's beak were stabbing her.

Feeling her resistance, her father said irritably, "Your mother spoke truth when she said you were too long unmarried. This winter I will seek out a husband for you, one of our own."

Eilan tore herself from his arms, her eyes blazing. "I have no choice but to obey you," she said bitterly,

"but if I am not to marry at my own will, I will marry no man upon the face of this earth."

"As you will," he said bitterly. "I will never seek to force you. But Senara I will pledge before she binds on her maiden's girdle. I will not have this sort of struggle with a daughter again!"

The rain continued to fall for many days, swelling rivers and streams and drowning fields, roads and paths. It was very near the time when Mairi should be delivered, and still her husband's fate was unknown. She had admitted that she would perhaps have done better to remain under her father's roof until her child was delivered, but in such weather it would have been more risky for her to travel than to stay at home. It was Eilan, therefore, who traveled to her sister's steading, escorted by two of her father's men.

Although she still wept at night when she thought of Gaius, Eilan found herself glad that she had come.

She was useful here; her sister needed someone to talk to, and her little nephew was fretful and confused because his mother had ceased to suckle him and his father had disappeared. Mairi was too clumsy now to pay him much heed; but Eilan had the patience to sit for hours feeding him with a horn spoon, and he recovered some of his laughter when she played with him.

As the rain continued to fall, there were times when Eilan wondered if she would be left alone to deliver
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her sister's second child. But Mairi had arranged for a priestess to come. "All the women of the Forest House are trained in such matters, Sister," Mairi told her, rubbing her back which ached constantly now.

"You've no need to fear." It was the evening of her fourth day with her sister, and Eilan was beginning to feel at home.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if they were to send Dieda to us?"

"She is new come to the Forest House and may not go outside during her first year. They have promised to send one of Lhiannon's attendants, a woman of Hibernia called Caillean." She spoke so dryly that Eilan wondered if Mairi disliked the woman, but thought it better not to ask.

Three days later, Caillean herself arrived: a tall woman, bundled in shawls and scarves that left only her eyes and heavy dark hair visible. Against the blackness of her hair and brows her skin looked milk-pale, but her eyes were blue. As she unwrapped herself, a shift in the wind brought gusts of smoke from the hearth, and the priestess began to cough. Eilan hurried to fill a mug of ale and offered it to her silently.

The priestess said in a low voice, "I thank you, child, but I am not allowed; if I might have some water . .

."

"Of course," Eilan murmured, blushing, and hastened to fill a drinking cup at the cask by the door. "Or I could draw it freshly from the well —"

"No, this will do very well," the priestess said, taking the cup from her hand and draining it. "I thank you.

But who is the woman with child? You are not much more than a child yourself."

"It is Mairi who is having the baby," Eilan murmured. "I am Eilan, Bendeigid's middle daughter. And there is another, Senara, who is only nine."

"My name is Caillean."

"I saw you at Beltane, but I did not know your name. I thought surely that Lhiannon's assistant would be

—" She stopped bashfully.

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Caillean completed the sentence. "Older? More dignified? I have been with Lhiannon since she brought me from the western shores of Eriu. I was four-and-ten or thereabouts when we came to the Forest House, and I have been there now for sixteen years."

"Do you know my kinswoman Dieda?"

"Certainly I do, but she dwells with the maidens; there are many of us, and we are not all of one order.

Now that I see you, I understand - but that is for later. Let me speak now to your sister."

Eilan led her to Mairi, now so pregnant that she moved with difficulty, and withdrew a little to give them some privacy. She could hardly hear the low murmur as Caillean questioned Mairi at length. There was something soothing in the quiet lilt of the priestess's voice.

Eilan could see the tension leaving Main's face, and realized for the first time that her sister had been afraid. She did not flinch as Caillean pressed her belly with her long hands. When she had done, Mairi lay back with a sigh.

"I think the babe will not be born today, and perhaps not tomorrow. Rest now, lass, for you will need all your strength when the time comes," Caillean said soothingly.

When Mairi was settled again, Caillean rejoined Eilan near the fire. "Is it true that her husband has disappeared?" she asked in an undertone.

"We fear he was taken by the Romans," Eilan replied. "My father warned me not to mention it to Mairi."

For a moment Caillean's gaze went inward. "Do not, for I fear she will not see him again."

Eilan looked at her in horror. "You have heard something?"

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"I have seen the omens, and they bode not well."

"Poor Mairi, poor love. How shall we tell her?"

"Say nothing now," Caillean counseled. "I will tell her myself after the birthing, when she will have reason to live for her child."

Eilan shuddered, for she was fond of Mairi and it seemed to her that the priestess had spoken of death just as she spoke of life, without feeling or regret for either. But she supposed that to a priestess, life and death must mean something quite other than what they meant to Eilan.

"I hope she has menfolk to care for her children's inheritance," Caillean went on.

"My father has no sons," Eilan said. "But Cynric will do a brother's duty to Main if there is need."

"Is he not the son of Bendeigid?"

"A foster son only; we were brought up together; he has always been very fond of Mairi. He is away in the North now."

"I have heard of this Cynric," Caillean said, and Eilan wondered just how much the priestess did know.

"And indeed your sister will be in need of kin."

That night a new storm came whirling in from the west, and Eilan, waking in the night, heard it beating around the house like a wild thing; when morning came, the trees were still blowing and tossing before the blast. But though a few handfuls of thatch were plucked from the roof, the roundhouse only groaned and shuddered before each new gust of wind, where a more rigid structure might have given way. The rain still fell relentlessly, but Caillean, staring out into the downpour, looked pleased.

"There are rumors of raiders from the coast," she said when Eilan questioned her. "If all the ways are flooded, they will not come this far inland."

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"Raiders?" Mairi echoed, looking frightened. But Caillean would not repeat herself, saying only that to name an evil was often to draw it near. By early evening the worst of the wind had blown itself out, and the weather settled to hard, insistent rain, leaving all the world awash with the sound of water, and of springs and cisterns overflowing. Fortunately there was a good supply of wood cut and stacked in a shed near the main house, so they built up a cheery blaze and Caillean unwrapped the small musical instrument she carried swaddled like a child. Eilan had never known a woman to play a harp; she herself had been beaten as a child for touching her grandfather's.

"Oh, it's true, there are woman bards among us," Caillean said, "though I play only for my own pleasure.

I think that Dieda will become one."

"I am not surprised," said Eilan a little wistfully. "She sings beautifully."

"Are you envious, child? There are other gifts than music, you know." The priestess frowned at Eilan thoughtfully, then appeared to come to a decision. "Did you not know she was chosen by mistake for you?"

Eilan stared, remembering all those times during her childhood when she had played at priestess, and the vision that had come to her when Lhiannon's cloak enfolded the other girl.

"Have you never thought of it, little one?"

Eilan did not reply. Of course, she had dreamed of such a thing for a long time, but then she had met Gaius. How could she be meant for a priestess if she was capable of such love for a man?

"Well, there is no need to make a decision now," Caillean said, smiling. "We will talk of this another time."

Eilan stared at her, and suddenly with doubled vision she saw the two of them together, lifting their arms in homage to the moon. But though recognition was total, she realized in surprise that Caillean's hair was not dark, but red, their features alike as those of sisters, and her own face was the one she had seen once before in the forest pool.
Sisters . . .and more than sisters. Women, and more than women . . .
The
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words came to her from some place beyond memory.

Then, with a little shock she remembered that she had never spoken with Caillean until yesterday. But as it had been with Gaius, it suddenly seemed to her that she had known the priestess from the beginning of the world.

Caillean had been playing for a long time when Mairi stood up suddenly and cried out, staring down at the dark stain that was spreading across her gown. The other two looked up in surprise.

"Have your waters broken already?" the priestess asked. "Well, love, babes come when they wish and not at our convenience; we'd better have you to bed. Eilan, go find the shepherd and have him bring in more wood for the fire. Then build up the fire and fill the cauldron and bring water to a boil. Mairi will be wanting hot tea before this is over, and so will we."

As Caillean had no doubt expected, having something to do calmed the younger girl. "Are you better now?" the priestess asked when Eilan returned. "I have often found it a mistake to allow any woman who has not herself borne a child to be in the room at a birth; it only frightens. But if you are to join us in the Forest House, sooner or later you will have to learn."

Eilan swallowed and nodded, determined to justify the older woman's faith in her. For the first hour or two Mairi dozed between pains, rousing only a few times an hour to cry out, almost as if in her sleep.

Eilan dozed on the bench near the fire; it was the darkest part of the night and the rain had settled down to a soft insistent pounding when Caillean bent and wakened her.

"Come, now, I shall need you; stir up the fire, and make Mairi a cup of berry-leaf tea. I don't know how long this will take, and I will want your help."