The Forest House (24 page)

came back to him.

"Is it really you?" he croaked then. "I thought you had burned . . . I saw what was left of your house after the raiders came."

She stepped backward, motioning him towards the end of the booth, while the other priestesses bent over Lhiannon, and Gaius, his head still reeling, got up and followed her.

"I was away helping my older sister with her new child," she said quietly so they would not be overheard. "But my mother and little Senara were there." Her voice broke. Then she stopped and sent a quick guilty glance at the other priestesses.

In the dim light, wrapped in pale robes, she looked like a spirit. He reached out to her. He could hardly believe she was there, alive, unharmed. For a moment his fingers brushed cool linen, then she twitched away.

"We cannot talk here," she said breathlessly, "even though you are not in uniform."

"Eilan," he said quickly, "when can I see you?"

"That is not possible," she said. "I am a priestess of the Forest House, and not allowed —"

"You are not allowed to speak to a man?" A
Vestal,
he thought.
The girl I love is as forbidden to me
as if she were a Vestal.

"It is not so bad as that -" she said with a faint smile. "But you are a Roman, and you know what my father would say."

"Indeed I do," he said after a moment, and then thought of what
his
father would say. Had the Prefect let Gaius grieve,
knowing
there was no need? Along with his wonder at her presence came a surge of anger.

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Looking into Eilan's hazel eyes, he realized suddenly that in all the time since he had left the house of Bendeigid, he had not felt so alive.

She shifted uneasily. "Dieda is looking at us; she may well recognize you. And Caillean, the older priestess —"

"I remember Dieda," he said harshly. "And I must get back to my centurion. Gods! I am glad to see you alive," he said, suddenly and intensely, but he did not move. The other priestesses were both looking at them now, and she raised her hand in a gesture of blessing.

"I thank you," she said in a voice that shook only a little. "Lhiannon is too heavy for any of us to lift. If you see Huw and he seems recovered, will you send him to us here?"

"To keep him safe from the cows," he said, and was rewarded by the sudden flicker of her smile.

"Go now."

"I must," he agreed. At that moment Lhiannon stirred; one of the women bent over and spoke soothingly to her, and hearing those low tones, it finally reached him that Eilan was a priestess of the Druids now.

He stumbled towards the entrance, and it was only when he was outside, blinking in the light, that he realized that he had not said goodbye or wished her well. Was she happy in the Forest House? Had she chosen that life, or had they forced her into it? But the door flap had fallen closed behind him. As he strode away, he heard Dieda's voice behind him.

"Eilan, what were you saying to that man? He walks like a Roman!"

"Oh, I don't think so," he heard Eilan say slowly. "Wouldn't he have been in uniform? The rest of them all were."

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He slowed, amazed at her guile. It was at least partly her innocence that had at first attracted him.

Now where the devil had his centurion got to? He forced himself into motion again. Was the man likely to tell Macellius about this? And, more important, how would Gaius manage to see Eilan again? Now that he had found her once more, he could not simply let her go.

Behind him in the tent, Eilan clasped her hands over her pounding heart. It seemed almost impossible that the other priestesses could not hear it.

Lhiannon stirred, and murmured, "What happened? Was anyone hurt?"

"Some fool frightened the cattle and they stampeded," Caillean answered.

"How . . .how did I get here?"

"A passer-by carried you. Huw fainted - the great halfwit," Caillean said crisply. "No, your rescuer is gone; Eilan blessed him in your name."

Eilan, hearing, thought it lucky Gaius had not been wearing Roman uniform and wondered why. She wondered what he would look like in the uniform of the Legions. Handsome, she imagined, but then, he was nice-looking anyhow. She shook her head, knowing that she should not be thinking of him that way, certainly not here. That part of her life was over.

"First make certain that Huw is all right, then bring him in here." Lhiannon ordered. "If the cattle have stampeded, they probably cannot be rounded up at once, and we will be here for the rest of the day."

Eilan went out into the sunlight. She found Huw sitting on the ground, barely conscious, shaking his head dizzily.

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"Is the Holy Lady safe?"

"No thanks to you, if she is," Eilan said crossly. "She fainted, and a passer-by carried her into the herb seller's booth."

"Where's all the cattle?"

Eilan looked around her and realized that Lhiannon had been wrong. The square was busy with folk setting up fallen booths and chattering, but there was not a cow to be seen.

"Only the gods know that, and maybe their drovers; they stampeded." The man who had been gored, she noticed, had been carried away by his friends. "That's why they gored that man; they were frightened," she said crisply.

"It was the Romans frightened them," Huw mumbled, getting painfully to his feet again. "Marching in all clanking and glittering that way. A murrain on them; why did they come here anyway? Did they think the blessing of the cattle was some kind of unlawful gathering?"

"There'll be no blessing of the cattle this day," he went on, shaking his head, "I'd best carry the Lady home. With Romans around there's more likely than not to be some kind of trouble," he added in a grumbling undertone.

Not for the first time, Eilan wondered why Lhiannon tolerated this great oaf. He was little use to her as a bodyguard; Eilan could not see that he was any use at all. If she should be ever in the position of the Oracle priestess - little as she desired it - the first thing she would do would be to rid herself of the services of this great bobby.

About a month after Beltane, Eilan was summoned to Lhiannon, and found her with a man who reminded her oddly of Cynric, and a little girl of eight or ten years with light reddish hair sun-touched with gold.

Eilan smiled at the child, who returned her gaze bashfully. Lhiannon said, "Hadron is one of the Raven Brotherhood. Tell her your story yourself, Hadron."

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"It is soon told," the man said. "I have a foster brother who-has joined the Legions as an auxiliary, and he interceded for me or I would have been taken and sent to the lead mines. After his intercession, the penalty was removed and my life spared, and so I was given only ten years of exile from any Roman possession. I must now flee to the North, and I cannot take a girl child with me where I go."

"So what is the problem?" Eilan knew Lhiannon had the authority simply to take the girl into the Forest House without consulting anyone. The fact that she had not already done so meant that there was some difficulty.

"She seems to me to be too young for a place among us," Lhiannon said, frowning. "I do not know what to say to him."

"If that is all," Eilan replied, "I should be happy to care for her until she can be sent to fosterage elsewhere. Or is there a female relative to whom she might be consigned?"

"There is not," said the man. "For my wife was Roman born, and I know very little of her near kinfolk."

"So your child is partly Roman? Cannot you send her to her kin among them?" Lhiannon asked."

The man answered sullenly, "My wife quarreled with her kindred to marry me; she begged me with her dying breath to make certain her daughter never fell into their hands. I thought if I might leave her in the care of the priestesses . . ."

Lhiannon said sternly, "We are not a refuge for orphans. Although for one of the Brotherhood of the Ravens we might possibly make an exception."

Eilan looked at the child and thought of her own little sister, dead at the hands of raiders three years ago now. If Senara were alive, who was looking after her? She had looked forward to tending Miellyn's baby as a kind of substitute for her lost sister, but the older woman had miscarried the Year-King's child.

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"I would willingly care for her, Lhiannon."

"That is why I called you. You are not yet committed to any very exacting duties here among us,"

Lhiannon replied. "Although this goes beyond the usual requirements. Still, if you will have it so, I will put this little refugee in your charge." She paused and asked Hadron, "What is her name?"

"My wife called her Valeria, My Lady."

Lhiannon scowled. "That is a Roman name; she cannot be called by it here."

"My wife had given up all her kin to marry me," said Hadron. "The least I could do was allow her to give her family name to her child."

"Even so, she must have a new name if she is to live here among us," Lhiannon said firmly. "Eilan, will you give her one?"

Eilan looked at the child, who was gazing at her with frightened eyes. She had lost all else; now she was to lose her father and even her name. Eilan said gently, "By your leave, I will call her Senara."

"That will do very well," said Lhiannon. "Now go; find her a place to sleep and suitable clothing. When she is of a proper age she may take vows among us as a priestess, if she wishes."

When Hadron had gone, Eilan looked once more at the little girl, who stood gazing raptly at the Lady.

"I am sorry to lay this upon you, Eilan. I have never had to deal with a child this age. What are we to do with her?" said Lhiannon.

"Perhaps she can run errands." Eilan put her arm around the little girl and smiled.

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Lhiannon nodded. "Since she is not under vows, perhaps she could carry messages beyond our walls."

"She is a little young for that, but if you are truly uncertain about having her stay here, perhaps we should ask among the Romans," Eilan suggested. "Despite what Hadron said, her mother's people might want her. We should at least make inquiries."

"That is a good thought," Lhiannon agreed a little vaguely, her attention already flitting away. "Look after it, Eilan, if you will."

The little hand slipped trustingly into her own, and something in Eilan's heart that had been sore since she lost her sister at last began to ease. As they walked across the courtyard, she asked the child, "You are not unhappy to be called Senara? It was my sister's name."

"Not at all," the little girl answered. "Where is your sister? Is she dead?"

"Dead or carried off beyond the seas," Eilan replied. "Alas that I do not know." And then she wondered why she had not asked Caillean for some word of her sister's fate, and her mother's when the older woman was scrying. Was it perhaps that she preferred to think of Senara peacefully dead than living in slavery?

She looked at the child, seeking some sign of her Roman parentage, and thought of Gaius. As the Prefect's son, Gaius could find out if there was anything to be known. Before Valeria became Senara forever, she owed it to the child at least to try.

As Eilan showed her charge where she was to sleep and found a linen novice's gown that could be cut down for her to wear, she found herself thinking about Gaius as much as about the girl.

Where was he now? Was he thinking of her as eagerly as she was of him? Had he put some spell on her, that she could not only think of nothing else, but did not particularly want to? She sighed, remembering the strength of his voice, his handsome face and form; the slight accent with which he spoke her name, his lingering kiss at the Beltane fires.

I
did not then realize fully what he wanted of me,
she thought.
I was too young to know - or care.

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But now I am older, and I am beginning to understand. What have I thrown away?
The thought came to her then:
For the rest of my life am I to dwell unloved — until I am as old and loveless as
Lhiannon?

Who could she ask? Who could she tell? Dieda would understand, but separated from her own beloved, she would hardly sympathize. Caillean, mishandled and unloved so young, would be angry. And if Caillean would not understand, how could she expect it of anyone else here?

There was no one to whom she could describe the hungry need in her heart just to look on him once more, even if after that she should never set eyes on him again.

The next morning, as she was cutting bread and cheese for Senara, she asked, "Do you remember anything about your kin in the Roman town?"

"They are not in the town, Eilan. I think my mother's brother was some kind of Roman official; he wrote the letters for the Prefect of the camp, and other such things."

"Indeed?" Eilan stared at her. Surely the gods were smiling, for this man must be the secretary to Gaius's own father.

She thought for a moment of taking the child into her confidence, but after a moment's reflection decided against it. If a priestess of the Forest House should be discovered in the company of a Roman, no matter how innocent her motives, it would mean trouble for anyone involved. And would it be all that innocent?

Twelve

That very day, Valerius, who was secretary to Gaius's father, had arrived out of breath and looking
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shaken. "I have just heard that my sister is dead," he told Gaius.

"Tell me about it," suggested Gaius as they walked across the parade ground towards his father's offices.

"It's a long story," Valerius replied. "I lost contact with my sister when she married; I haven't seen her a dozen times in as many years."

"Did she move far away?"

Valerius gave a short laugh. "Only so far as Deva, but she married a man of the tribes, and my father disowned her."

Gaius nodded. It was bad enough for a Roman to marry a native woman of a princely house. He knew only too well how Roman" society would view a daughter who ran off with a native lover.

"An old woman who used to be my sister's nurse and mine sent me the news of her death," Valerius went on, "and I found out by asking some questions about the trouble her husband's in. I've seen him only a time or two, but he had a foster brother who's with the auxiliaries who told me that Hadron is one of the Ravens and has been proscribed. The thing is, she left a small daughter, and I don't know what's become of the child. Didn't you know a couple of the Ravens?"