The Forest House (7 page)

Lhiannon sighed, and he knew that she was remembering those days of blood and fire when Boudicca had sacrificed men to the Goddess in return for victory. They had all been so young in those days, so sure they could bring back the days of glory with a little courage and a sharp sword.

"If there's any disturbance," said Ardanos, "any demonstration even, you know as well as I do that this part of the country will be cut to pieces. But how could I know their Legions had just marched through and levied thirty good men to rot in those filthy Mendip mines?"

But he should have known; he was supposed to know what the Romans were up to almost before they knew it themselves. He had to be ready for the next outrage, whatever it might be.

She said, "Canceling the rites at this late date would probably create unrest even where there was none.

Do you want me to try it? Have there been any incidents, reaction to the levies, perhaps?"

"I'm not sure," Ardanos said. "Someone seems to have tried to arrange for the Prefect's son to . . .

disappear -"

"The Prefect's son?" Lhiannon raised one thin eyebrow as if wondering why anyone should care. "To protest, or to make trouble for our people? Wouldn't it be more like Bendeigid to murder the men who came to take away the levies?"

"He found the lad trapped in a boar pit and saved his life, and now the boy is a guest in his home."

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Lhiannon stared at him for a moment and began to laugh. "And your son-in-law Bendeigid does not know?"

"The lad looks enough like his Silure mother to pass for one of ours, and he's self-possessed enough not to give himself away. But he'll need to do some healing before he can be moved. If anything happens to the youngster, who's never, as far as I know, done anything much either good or ill, you know as well as I do that we'll be blamed for it. We get blamed for everything else, all the way back to and including the sack of Troy, and the very fact that the Legions are here and not back in Gaul where they belong. There are all the old atrocity stories that go back to the deified Julius - may he rest in peace," Ardanos added with a fierce grin that meant, she was certain, the exact opposite.

"Still, there is an element of rebellion," he said. "You don't see it, placed as you are; I don't see it much, living among Romans as I've done for so long. But it's my business to watch the winds. To see signs and omens. For instance - where ravens fly at midnight; I speak of the secret society that worships the Lady of Battles."

This made her laugh. "Oh, Ardanos! Those half-crazy old men who sacrifice to Cathubodva, telling fortunes and looking for omens in dead birds' guts - as bad as the Legions with their sacred chicken-coops - no one has ever paid the slightest attention to them -"

"That's what they were," Ardanos said. He told himself that he welcomed being able to tell Lhiannon something she did not know. In the old days, the priestesses had been equal with the Druids in their councils, but since the fall of Mona they had learned to be secret in order to survive. On occasion, the Arch-Druid even had to act on his own. Ardanos wondered sometimes if they might not be carrying it too far - if the priestesses might carry out the decisions of the Council better if they had a voice in making them. Then he would not have felt so alone with the problem.

"That is surely what they were, not three years ago. Now suddenly, instead of old priests and sacrificers, they're a group of young men, not one of whom is over twenty-one and most of whom were born in the Holy Island, who think they are reincarnations of the Sacred Band —"

"Thosechildren! Born as they were, it would not surprise me." Her smooth brow wrinkled as she began to understand.

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"Exactly so," he continued. "That boy Cynric whom Bendeigid is fostering is one of them, and my son-in-law, who always did have a touch of the fanatic, has lost no opportunity to share his politics with the boy!"

Lhiannon turned white. "How, may I ask, did that happen?"

"I never knew it would make any difference; it was before my daughter Rheis married Bendeigid, and I did not know him so well. By the time I realized how much trouble either of them could make, it was too late. Cynric's all set to begin where his foster father leaves off. He and Bendeigid between them managed to find most of the other boys - and there were the Ravens, with a name and an organization ready to hand . . .

"If anything should happen to me, or to you -" He shook his head, grimacing. "Who could stop them from trying to avenge their mothers' shame on Rome? Already folk from here to the lakes are going about telling one another that these men are reincarnated heroes."

"And so they might be," Lhiannon said,

Ardanos grunted. "The worst of it is, they look it."

"I recommended that they should all be drowned, remember, not just the girls," said Lhiannon, recovering her composure. "Cruel as it sounds, it would have saved trouble now. But there were some who had other ideas; they were tender-hearted or, like Bendeigid, they wanted to raise the boys to take revenge for the priestesses. And so they are still alive and it is more than twenty years too late to deny their existence. I cannot now say that they have no right to avenge."

Never that, Ardanos thought. He must never suggest that the word of Lhiannon was her own word, or the word of the priests, and not the word of the Goddess. He must not remind her that the word of Lhiannon had never differed in any essential way from the agreed will of the Council of Druids, or that the Goddess - if she existed at all, he thought cynically, had long since ceased to care or to intervene in what became of her worshipers, or of anybody else, except - or maybe including - her priestess.

He said carefully, "I was implying nothing. I merely remind you — will you not be seated? Your guard is eyeing me most disquietingly -I said only that if the Goddess answers your prayers for peace, She also hears, and ignores, the prayers of most of the population for open rebellion or war. How long will She
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continue to hear your prayers and ignore theirs? Or to put it even more bluntly" —
but not bluntly
enough,
he thought - "forgive me for this, but you are not a young woman — what of the day when you no longer serve the shrine?"

If I could only speak the truth to her.A passion he thought he had forgotten tightened his throat.
She and
I grow weak with the years, but Rome is still strong. Who will teach the young ones how to
preserve our ancient ways until Rome in her turn grows old, and our land is our own once more?

After a moment she dropped into a chair and shielded her eyes with her hands. She said, "Do you think I have not considered that?"

"I know you have thought of it," he said. "And I know the result of your thoughts. Vernemeton might one day be served by one who, let us say, answered the cries of the many for war, rather than the prayers of her Priestess. And then there
would
be war. And you know what will become of us then."

"I can only serve the shrine while I live," said Lhiannon bitterly. "Even you cannot ask more of me than that."

"While you live," echoed the old Druid. "It is of that we must speak now." Lhiannon passed her hand across her eyes. More gently, he asked, "Do you not choose your own successor?"

"In a sense." She drew a deep breath. "They say I will know when I am to die and thus pass on my powers and such wisdom as is mine. You know who makes the real choice. I was not Helve's chosen.

She loved me, yes, but I was not her choice. That one - her name does not matter; she was but nineteen, and disturbed in her wits. It was she on whom Helve's choice fell; she gave that girl the kiss of farewell, and yet she was not even considered nor given any trial at the hands of the gods. Why not? No doubt you know better than I. The priests make the final choice. What I say about my successor will have little weight — unless I am careful to name someone acceptable to them."

"Yet," said Ardanos, "It could be arranged - that your choice would be theirs."

She said, "Your choice, you mean."

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"If you will." He sighed. She was simply too quick to see through him, he could hardly resent that —

certainly not now.'

"I tried that once," said Lhiannon wearily, "with Caillean; and you know how that experiment turned out."

"Do I?" he asked.

Lhiannon looked at him oddly. "You should pay more attention to what is happening in the Forest House. I suspect you would find it hard to trust her; she has the extremely awkward habit of thinking, usually at precisely the wrong time."

"But she is the senior priestess. If you were to die tomorrow you know Caillean would be chosen -

unless," he added with emphasis, "she were to die in the hour of trial." Lhiannon paled, and he went on,

"You know best if she would be acceptable to the gods . . ."

She was silent this time, and he added persuasively, "But if there were someone else, less well known, whom you could train. If the Council. . .never suspected prearrangement —"

"If the girl was suitable and intelligent I cannot see why it should be thought a crime or a blasphemy to prepare her for the choice of the gods . . . or even for the ordeal at their hands," the old High Priestess said thoughtfully.

Ardanos was silent; he knew he could drive her only so far. Outside he could hear wind soughing in the trees, but there was no sound but their breathing within the room.

"Whom have you chosen for me to choose?" Lhiannon asked.

For the three days preceding one of the festivals at which she was to serve as the Voice of the Goddess, the High Priestess lived in seclusion, attended only by her chosen priestess, resting, meditating, and purifying herself. Caillean, who almost always stayed with her, welcomed this time of separation. The shelter of the Forest House could be constricting, and whenever so many women, however holy, lived together, there were bound to be conflicts from time to time.

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But now she found it hard to put memories of the outside world behind her. She spooned oat porridge -

made more nourishing by the addition of nutmeats, since the High Priestess might have no animal flesh during her time of purification — into a carved wooden bowl and offered it to Lhiannon.

"What did Ardanos want of you?" Caillean heard the bitterness in her own voice, but could not stop the words. "I did not expect to see him here until the day of the festival."

"You must not speak so of the Arch-Druid, child," Lhiannon shook her head, frowning. "He has a heavy load to bear."

"So have you," Caillean said tartly. "And he makes it no lighter with his demands on you."

Lhiannon shrugged, and Caillean thought once more how fragile those shoulders were to bear the weight of so many hopes and fears.

"He does the best he can," the High Priestess said as if she had not heard. "He worries about what will happen when I am gone."

Caillean looked at her in alarm. It was said that a priestess, especially one of high degree, would know her time. "Have you seen some omen - has he?"

Lhiannon shook her head fretfully. "He spoke in general, but someone must take thought for these things.

No one is immortal, and whoever is to succeed me will have to begin her training soon."

For a moment Caillean looked at her. Then she laughed.

"By that am I to understand that none of us who are already trained is acceptable - especially me? Do not bother to answer,"

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she said then. "I know that you will only defend him, and in truth I do not mind. The title of High Priestess is not enough to justify what I have seen you suffer all these years." Especially, she thought,-since the honor of it was empty so long as Lhiannon did not choose to exercise her power.

Lhiannon made a movement of discomfort, and Caillean realized that she was treading too near forbidden ground. She had been closer to the older woman than a daughter since before her moonblood began to flow, and that was more than twenty years ago, so she knew how Lhiannon depended on the illusions that cushioned her reality.

Another woman might have asked Caillean what she wanted instead. Caillean's lips twisted wryly as she cleared away the half-eaten porridge for, indeed, she herself did not know. But her heart told her that there must be more to serving the Goddess than these formal rituals with their tantalizing hints of power.

The secret teachings of the Druids included tales of a time long ago when priests from a lost land now sunk beneath the sea had come to Britannia. They had been masters of magic, and as they married into the ruling lines of the people they found here and later into the families of each new group of conquerors, the old blood, and the old knowledge had been preserved. But those most learned in that lore had died on Mona, and their knowledge with them.

Sometimes it seemed to Caillean that what they retained at the Forest House was only the dregs of greatness. Most of the other women were content with their small magic, but from time to time Caillean would feel an odd conviction that there must be more. She had spoken truth to Lhiannon - she did not want to be Priestess of the Oracle. And yet if not that, what was it that she wanted to do?

"It is time for our morning devotions," Lhiannon's voice pierced her distraction. The older woman gripped the table and pushed herself upright.

And Goddess forbid that we should fail to perform even the slightest step in the ritual!thought Caillean as she helped the High Priestess to move out to the garden and settle herself before the plain stone altar there. But as Caillean lit the lamp set on its top and brought the flowers to lay before it, she found a measure of peace returning to her soul.

"Behold, Thou art come with the dawning adorned with flowers," Lhiannon said softly, lifting her hands in salutation.

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"Thy radiance blazes in the strengthening sun and in the holy fire," Caillean replied.

"In the east arising, Thou art come to bring new life to the world." The voice of the High Priestess seemed to grow younger, purer, and Caillean knew that if she looked, she would have seen the lines of age fading from Lhiannon's face, until the beauty of the Maiden Goddess shone from her eyes.