The Forest House (56 page)

loved Gaius she could not help remembering that he had not stood by her. But Caillean had always been there.

She looked at her sister-priestess helplessly, and thought suddenly,
We have been through this before,
and I watched her die in pain.

Suddenly Eilan was angry. If she could do nothing about it, why did Caillean want to harrow her feelings by telling her? She looked at the other woman almost with hostility, and saw a flicker of emotion in Caillean's dark eyes, like a hidden current in a pool. Knowledge came to her suddenly.
She too is
afraid.

She took a deep breath, and the power of the Goddess that Caillean could awaken in her stirred suddenly.

"As High Priestess of Vernemeton, I command you - tell me your dream!"

Caillean's eyes widened, but in a few moments the tale was spilling out of her. Eilan listened with eyes closed, seeing the images as Caillean described them. And soon it seemed to her as if she could see them before the other woman spoke, as if it were her own dream that Caillean was telling, and when Caillean fell silent, she herself continued with the story of her own dream of the swans.

"We will be parted," she said finally, opening her eyes. "Whether by death or some other force I do not know, but it is like death to think of losing you, Caillean."

"But if not by death, what then?" the older woman asked.

Eilan frowned, remembering the gleam of silver waters beneath the clouds. "The Summer Country," she said suddenly. "Surely that is the place we both saw in our dreams. You must go there, Caillean, and take a dozen of the maidens with you. I do not know if this is to fulfill the purpose of the Goddess or to defy it, but surely it is better to do
something
than to sit here waiting for death to take you, even if what we do is wrong!"

Caillean still looked dubious, but the life had returned to her eyes. "Ardanos will never allow it. He is the
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Arch-Druid, and he wants all the priestesses here at Vernemeton, under his eye!"

Eilan looked at her and smiled. "But I am Priestess of the Oracle. Leave Ardanos to me!"

In Midsummer Morning, the maidens of the Forest House went at dawn to gather dew from the summer flowers. The dew had many powers, both in increasing beauty and bestowing magic. It was said that on that day any maiden who washed her face with the morning dew and then looked into a clear stream could see the face of him who loved her best.

Eilan found herself wondering why the priestesses, who after all were all under vows of chastity or intending to be so, should wish to know such things. Did most of them cherish memories of sweethearts in the lives they had left? She had done worse than dream about her lover. But she hoped that the others who served the Goddess could be more single-minded than she.

Eilan heard the girls laughing as they returned from the forest, but she did not go out to see them. As time went on, she was increasingly aware of the need for ritual seclusion before the great festivals. She had thought it would grow easier with time, but it seemed to her that keeping the balance between all the forces that sought the Power of the Goddess grew harder each year.

Each time Ardanos came to whisper his instructions into her ear, she remembered that by keeping the peace she, no less than the Arch-Druid, was serving the Romans; and she wondered if the fact that they both worked for what they considered to be the good of Britain could ever justify that alliance.

The door opened and Caillean came in. Even she had a wreath of red poppies to celebrate the day. Her cheeks were flushed from the sun and she looked healthier than she had for some time. "You are alone?"

"Who would be with me today? All of the girls in the house have gone out to pick the midsummer flowers and Lia has taken Gawen to visit Mairi." Eilan answered.

"That is well." Caillean sat down on a three-legged stool. "We must speak of tonipick the midsummer flowers and Lia has taken Gawen to visit Mairi." Eilan answered.

"That is well." Caillean sat down on a three-legged stool. "We must speak of tonight's Oracle."

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"I have been thinking of little else since I awakened!" Eilan said bitterly. "I wish it was you who must sit here in the dark, preparing. You would have made so much better a High Priestess than I!"

"Gods forbid; I am not such a one as could obediently do Ardanos's will."

Suddenly furious, Eilan said wrathfully, "If I am no more than a creature of the priests, you know best who made me so."

Caillean sighed. "I thought not to criticize you,
mo chridhe."
The endearment defused Eilan's anger.

Caillean went on, "We are all in Her hands and do Her will as best we can, I no less than you. You should not be angry with me."

"I am not angry," Eilan said, not altogether truthfully, but unwilling to quarrel with the woman to whom she owed so much. Sometimes she felt that the weight of her debt to Caillean should crush her. "I am afraid," she went on, "but I will tell you a thing that no one else knows. The sacred drink that is intended to drug me is not the same as it was in Lhiannon's day. I have altered it so that the trance is not total. I know what Ardanos is telling me to say —"

"But he always seems quite content with your words," Caillean said frowning. "Are you still so in love with your Gaius that you intentionally serve Rome?"

"I serve peace!" Eilan exclaimed. "It has never occurred to Ardanos that I would disobey him, and when my answers are somewhat different from the words I was given he thinks only that I am an imperfect vessel. But the words of peace are not my decision. When I offered myself to the Goddess I was not lying! Do you think the rites we do here at the Forest House are a lie?"

Caillean shook her head. "I have felt the Goddess too strongly -but -"

"Do you remember Midsummer seven years ago, when Cynric came?"

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"How could I forget?" Caillean said ruefully. "I was terrified!" For a few moments she was silent. "That was not you, I know it, but a face of the Goddess I hope never to see again. Is it that way always?"

Eilan shrugged. "Sometimes She comes, sometimes not, and I must use my own judgment. But every time I sit in the high seat I make the offering, and each time I wait like this I wonder if this will be the time She will strike me down!"

"I see," said Caillean carefully. "Forgive me if I misunderstood you when you said you would compel Ardanos to send me south. But what will you do about me?"

"This is the testing —" Eilan leaned forward. "For both of us. If all we have built here is not to be a lie I must now risk both myself and you. Tonight I shall make up the potion according to the old recipe. When the Goddess takes me, you must ask about your dream. Everyone will hear the answer, and we all - you, Ardanos, and I - will be bound by it, whatever it may be."

The quality of the light had altered considerably towards sunset when outer door opened and one of Ardanos's apprentices came in; he was so young that he had as yet only the thinnest straggle of beard.

The young Druid said deferentially, "We are ready for you, my lady." Eilan, who was already beginning to slip into the detached meditative state that preceded trance, rose from her chair. Eilidh and Senara lowered the heavy ritual cloak over her shoulders and fastened it at her throat with a massive gold chain.

The night was cool despite the season, and even in her thick cloak, Eilan shivered as she got into her litter. From out of the darkness came two white-robed priests, pale figures moving with measured step at her side. She knew that they were there to guard her against even accidental injury or pressure from the crowds, but somehow she had never been able to dismiss the thought that they were her guards.

The thought flashed across her mind like a rabbit scuttling into the bushes:
Every priestess is a prisoner
of her gods . . .

She was vaguely aware of passing through the long avenue of trees that led to the hill. Before the mound a great fire was burning, one of many fires on this night. Its red gleam played on the leaves of the ancient oak that grew next to the mound. A sound of anticipation went through the crowd like a soft sigh. She could not help remembering the first time she had heard it greet Lhiannon. Now she stood in Lhiannon's place, and the people who watched had as little understanding of what was really happening here as she
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had had then.

Two small boys about eight or nine years old, white-robed novices of the bards chosen for their innocence and beauty, brought forward the great golden bowl. They had golden torques about their throats, and belts embroidered with gold cinctured their white robes. As a ray of moonlight lanced through the leaves of the oak tree, a twiglet of mistletoe — cut by a priest hidden in the branches -

fluttered downwards. Eilan caught it and dropped it into the bowl.

She murmured the words of blessing, and bracing herself against the bitterness, drank the liquid down.

The voices of the Druids rose in invocation; the pressure of expectation from the people beat against her awareness. The liquid burned in her belly; she wondered if she had got the dosage wrong, then remembered that she had felt this way before. It came to her then that each time poisoned her a little, and that she would die as Lhiannon had died, though perhaps not as soon.

But the world was already dimming around her; she was scarcely aware of falling backward into the seeress's chair, or the jolting as they carried it to the top of the mound.

Caillean eyed the figure slumped in the high seat above her with more than usual concern. As always, the intensity of the chanting was pushing her towards trance as well. But there was a tension in the pulsing energies around her that she did not understand. She turned and saw Eilan's father among the white-robed Druids in the circle. Ardanos had said nothing. Had he even known that Bendeigid was going to be there?

Eilan twitched in the high seat and Caillean reached for the back to steady it. It was forbidden to touch the High Priestess when she was entranced, but they must be prepared to catch her if she fell.

"Goddess!"she prayed,
"take care of her — I do not care what happens to me!"
It seemed to her then that Eilan stilled; from the corner of her eye she could see one white hand dangling over the edge of the chair, slender as a child's. How could it wield such power?

"Lady of the Cauldron!" cried the people. "Silver Wheel! Great Queen! Come to us! Great Goddess, speak to us now!"

Caillean felt the wood of the chair quiver beneath her hand. Eilan's fingers were curling, and to Caillean's fascinated gaze the pale flesh seemed to glow.
It is true,
she thought then,
the Goddess is here.
Slowly,
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the figure in the high seat straightened, stretching as if to accommodate a mass greater than the slight figure of the woman sitting there. Caillean felt a little chill run down her spine.

"Behold, oh ye people, the Lady of Life has come. Let the Oracle speak! Let the Goddess declare forth the will of the Immortals!" Ardanos cried.

"Goddess! Deliver us from those who would enslave us!" came another voice. Bendeigid stepped forward. "Lead us to victory!"

They sounded like ravens, crying for blood and death. Eilan alone stood between the Forest House and a people shrieking for war. Did they even know what would happen to this country, between the Romans and their foreign auxiliaries, if it should come to open fighting? Despite her hatred for the Romans, Caillean wondered how any sane man or woman - or even a Goddess - could loose war on this countryside. Had Bendeigid so soon forgotten their home in flames, forgotten the deaths of his wife and little daughter?

Goddess,she thought,
You have given the peace of this countryside into Eilan's hands; let her do
Your will even if it may seem it is the will of the Romans as well. . .

The figure in the chair quivered, and thrust the veil back suddenly, surveying the throng with a face as cold and dispassionate as one of the statues the Romans made.

"This is the shortest night," she said softly, and the murmuring people stilled to hear. "But from this moment onward, the forces of light will be declining. Oh ye whose pride it is to learn all secrets of earth and heaven" — she indicated the circle of Druids with a disdainful hand - "can you not read the signs in the world around you? The tribes have seen their day and now grow ever weaker; thus it will be one day with the Empire of the Romans as well. All things reach their peak and thereafter must decline."

"But is there no hope then?" asked Bendeigid. "In time, even the sun is reborn!"

"That is true," said the still, calm voice from above him. "But not until the darkest day has passed. Put away your swords and hang up your shields, children of Don. Let the Roman eagles tear at each other while you till your fields, and be patient, for Time will surely avenge your wrongs! I have read in the mystic scrolls of the Heavens; and I tell you, the name of Rome is not written there."

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A sigh of mingled relief and disappointment swept through the crowd.

Ardanos and one of the other priests were whispering. Caillean realized this was the only chance she might have to do what Eilan had asked.

"What then of the old wisdom? How shall Your worship be preserved in a changing world?"

Ardanos and Bendeigid both glared at her, but the question had been asked, and already the Goddess was turning, and Caillean trembled, utterly certain at that moment that what looked down at her was not Eilan at all.

"Is it you, daughter of the elder race, who would truly question Me?" came the soft answer. There was a pause, as the attention of the Goddess appeared to go inward; then She laughed. "Ah, it is this one also who asks. She could ask more than that of Me, but she is afraid. Such a silly child not to understand that My will is for you all to be free." She shrugged Her shoulders gently. "But you are children, all of you."

Her gaze lifted to fix Ardanos, who flushed and looked away, "and I will not destroy your illusions now.