The Forest House (13 page)

Caillean looked at her and suddenly laughed. "Well, to be truthful, neither can I! Those men terrified me so that I could scarce speak. I thought I had forgotten their dialect—the last time I heard it was so long ago.”

"You did not look terrified,” said Eilan. "You looked like a goddess standing there.” She heard once more the other woman's bitter laugh.

"Things are not always as they seem, my little one. You must learn not to put all your trust in how folk look, or in what they say.”

Eilan stared into the fire, whose embers, stirred back to life by Caillean's raking, snapped and sparkled on the hearth. The man she had learned to care for as Gawen had been an illusion, but even as Gaius the Roman, the thing that made her love him was the same. And he had spoken truth to her.
I would know him,
she thought then,
if he came to me as a leper or a wild man.
For a moment she grasped at something that lay beyond face or form or name. Then a coal snapped, and it was gone.

"Tell me what is true, then,” Eilan said to fill the silence. "How did that cotter's child you say you were become a priestess who could hold fire in her hands?”

 

Tell me what is true
…Caillean stared at the girl, who had lowered her fair lashes over those changeable eyes as if frightened by her own boldness. What other truths might come back to haunt her, as her mother tongue had returned on the lips of those monstrous men? She was twice Eilan's age—old enough to be her mother if she had married young, and yet at this moment the younger woman was like a sister, a twin soul.

"Did you come at once then to the Forest House with Lhiannon?” persisted Eilan.

"I did not; I think that Vernemeton was not yet built then,” Caillean pulled herself together enough to answer her. "Lhiannon had come to Eriu to study with the
bean-drui,
the priestesses at the shrine of Brigid at Druim Cliadh. When she returned to Britain, we dwelt at first in a round tower on the shore far, far to the north of here. I remember that there was a ring of white stones laid around the tower, and it was death for any man, save only the Arch-Druid—not Ardanos, but the one who was before—to come within this ring of stones. Always, she treated me as her foster daughter; once she said, when someone asked, that she had found me abandoned on the seashore. It might as well have been true; I never saw any member of my family again.”

"Didn't you miss your mother?”

Caillean hesitated, shaken by the flood of memories. "I suppose you had a good and a loving mother. Mine was otherwise. It is not that she was evil, but I cared little for her nor she for me.” She stopped herself, eyeing the younger woman warily.
What power is in you, girl,
she thought,
that you can conjure such memories from me?
She sighed, trying to find the right words.

"For her, I was only an extra mouth to feed. Once, years later in the market at Deva, I saw an old woman who reminded me of my mother. She was not, of course, but I did not even feel regret when I realized it. It was then that I knew I had no kinfolk but Lhiannon and, later, the other priestesses of the Forest House…”

There was a long silence. She could see Eilan trying to imagine what it would be like to grow up without a family. Caillean could see that Mairi's bossiness had held affection, and, from what Dieda had told her, she had been like Eilan's twin. And yet, she realized suddenly, just as she herself had never unburdened her heart to her fellow priestesses, never could Eilan have talked to any of her family as she was speaking with Caillean now.

It is like talking to myself, to say these things to her,
Caillean thought ruefully,
or perhaps it is like talking to the self I should have been, forever innocent and pure.

"The darkness and the fire glow here remind me of my earliest years,” the priestess said at last, and as she spoke the dull light captured her vision and she was falling down the tunnel of the years, the words pouring out of her as if she were under some spell.

"All I truly recall of the hut is that it was dark and always smoky. It hurt my throat, so I was always running alone down to the seashore. Mostly I remember the crying of the seagulls; they were about the tower too, so that when I came here to the Forest House many seasons ago, for more than a year I could hardly sleep for being out of the sound of the sea. I loved the ocean. My memories of my…home…” she continued hesitantly, "are all of children, always a baby at my mother's breast, always the whimpering and squalling, and tugging at her skirts and at mine when I could not escape them. But even beatings could not keep me within the house to pound barley, or to be pulled around by the whimpering naked brats. It is surprising I can endure babes,” she added, "but I have no dislike for such as Mairi's who come where they are much longed for and are well cared for once they are born.

"I must have had a father, but even when I was very small, I knew he did nothing for my mother except to make sure that there was always a new baby at the breast.” She hesitated. "I dare say Lhiannon pitied me as a starveling.”

Caillean heard her own words, surprised that they held no bitterness; as if she had accepted all this too long ago.

"So I do not even know how old I am, not really. It was about a year or so after Lhiannon took me away before my body showed the first signs of womanhood. I think I was about twelve then.” She broke off suddenly, and Eilan looked at her in amazement.

I am a woman, a priestess,
Caillean told herself,
a sorceress who can frighten armed men!
But the fire trance had taken her too far into memory, and she felt like a terrified child. Which was the truth? Or was the deception only in the flickering of the fire?

"I must be more shaken than I knew,” she said in a stifled voice, "or perhaps it is the hour, and the darkness, as if we had stepped outside time.” She looked at Eilan, forcing herself to honesty, "Or it may be because I am talking to you…”

Eilan swallowed, and steeled herself to meet the other woman's gaze.
Truth…tell me the truth
—Caillean heard the thought as if it had been her own, and could not tell which of them had a greater need for it…

"I never told Lhiannon, and the Goddess has not struck me down…” She felt the words dragged out of her. "But after all these years it seems to me that perhaps someone should know.”

Eilan reached out to her, and Caillean's fingers closed hard on her hand.

"It was the sight and sound of those raiders that made me remember. In my old home there was a man I sometimes saw on the shore. He was, I suspect, one who lived there apart from other men, an outlaw driven from his clan. I would not wonder at that,” she added bitterly. "At first I trusted him; he gave me small gifts, pretty things he had found on the shore, shells, bright feathers.” She hesitated. "More fool I for thinking him harmless; but how would I have known better? Who had there ever been to teach me?”

She stared blindly towards the fire, but there had been no light in the hut, and no light could reach her now in this place of memory. "I suspected nothing, I never knew what he wanted when he dragged me into his hut one day—” She shuddered, racked by memories for which, even now, she had no words.

"What did you do?” Eilan's voice came from a great way off, like a distant star.

"What could I do?” Caillean said harshly, clinging to that little light. "I—I ran away, crying—crying till I thought I would melt, and filled with such horror and disgust—I can't speak of that. It seemed there was no one I could tell, no one who would have cared.” She was silent for a long time. "To this day I remember the smell in his hut—filth, bracken, seaweed, and being pushed down on it while I whimpered—I was too young to imagine what he wanted. The smell of the sea and of bracken still makes me ill,” she added.

"Didn't anyone ever know? Didn't they do anything?” asked Eilan. "I think my father would kill anyone who had touched me so.”

Caillean had said it at last, and breathing was a little easier now. She let out some of the pain in a long, shuddering, sigh. "Wild as our tribe was, women could not be molested, nor a child so young. Had I accused my attacker, he would have come to the wicker cage and roasted in a slow fire. He knew it, when he threatened me. But I did not know it then.” She spoke with a strange detachment now, as if it had all happened to someone else.

"It was about a year afterward that Lhiannon came. She would never have suspected that a girl so young could already be impure—and by the time I came to trust her and believe in her goodness, it was too late; I feared I should be sent away. So, after all, that divinity you thought you saw in me is all a lie,” she said harshly. "If Lhiannon had known, I should never have been made priestess—but I made sure she never knew.” She turned her face away. For a moment that seemed far too long, there was silence.

"Look at me—”

Caillean found her gaze drawn back to the child and saw Eilan's face, one side Goddess-bright and the other in shadow.

"I believe in you,” said the girl gravely.

Caillean drew a shaken breath and Eilan's image was blurred by her tears.

"I live only because I believe that the Goddess forgives me as well,” the priestess said. "I had already received my first initiation before I understood the enormity of my deception. But there were no evil omens. When they made me priestess I waited for a thunderbolt, but none came. I wondered then if perhaps there are no gods, or if there are, they care nothing for the doings of humankind.”

"Or perhaps they are more merciful than men,” said Eilan, then blinked as if amazed at her own temerity. It had never occurred to her to question the wisdom of men like her father and grandfather before. "Why did you leave your tower by the sea?” Eilan prompted after a time.

Caillean, lost in memory, started and said, "Because of the destruction of the shrine on Mona—you know that story?”

"My grandfather—he is a bard—has sung it. But surely that was before you were born—”

"Not quite,” Caillean laughed. "But I was still a child. If Lhiannon had not been in Eriu, which you call Hibernia, at the time, she too would have died. For some years after that disaster the remaining Druids of Britain were too busy licking their wounds to take much thought for their priestesses. Then the Arch-Druid made some kind of treaty with the Romans that ensured sanctuary for the surviving sacred women within Roman lands.”

"With the Romans!” Eilan exclaimed. "But it was the Romans who killed the others!”

"No, they only despoiled them,” said Caillean bitterly. "The priestesses of Mona lived long enough to bear the bastards the Romans had begotten on them, then killed themselves. The children were fostered out to loyal families like your own.”

"Cynric!” exclaimed Eilan with a look of sudden comprehension. "That is why he is so bitter about the Romans, and always wants to hear the story of Mona, though it happened so long ago. They always hushed me when I asked about it before!”

"Your Cynric the Roman-hater has exactly as much Roman blood as that boy your father refused to let you marry,” said Caillean, laughing. But Eilan hugged her arms and stared into the fire.

"Don't you believe me?” asked the priestess. "It is all too true. Well, perhaps the Romans feel some guilt for what was done, but your grandfather is as wily a political animal as any Roman senator, and he bargained with Cerealis, who was Governor before Frontinus. At any rate the Forest House was built at Vernemeton to shelter women and priestesses from the whole of Britain. And at last Lhiannon became High Priestess and a place was made for me among them, mostly because they did not know what else to do with me. I have attended Lhiannon since I was a little child, but I am not to succeed her. That has been made clear to me.”

"Why not?”

"At first I thought it was the will of the Goddess…because of what I told you. But now I believe that it is because the priests cannot trust me to obey. I love Lhiannon, but I see her clearly, and I know that she will bend with the wind. Perhaps the only time she ever defied the Council was when she insisted on keeping me. But I see through their plots and speak my mind, though not,” she shook her head ruefully, "as I have spoken to you!”

Eilan returned her smile. "That must be true, for I cannot imagine saying even half the things I have heard this night in my father's hall.”

"They would not dare let me speak with the voice of the Goddess—they would always be wondering what I was going to say!” Caillean found herself laughing again. "They will want someone more loyal. I thought for a time it was to be Dieda; but I overheard a bit of what Ardanos said when she was chosen. I believe that they had planned it should be you.”

"You said something like this before, but I think my father means to arrange a marriage for me.”

"Truly?” Caillean raised one eyebrow. "Well, perhaps I am wrong. I knew only that the son of the Prefect of the camp at Deva had asked for you.”

"My father was so angry…” Eilan blushed, remembering the things he had said to her. "He said he would have Senara married off before she could cause him any trouble. I thought he meant the same for me. But he said nothing of sending me to Vernemeton. If I cannot be with Gaius,” she added dully, "I do not suppose it matters what I do.”