The Forest House (23 page)

"And that is what you want of me?” Eilan realized that she was trembling. "How can I do it? I do not know how!”

"Not you, but the Goddess within you—” Eilan's breath stopped as he smiled. "And it is my office to awaken Her.”

He released the hide, and as its stiff folds fell away she saw that he was naked, his body the image of the potent god. He smoothed the hair that curled away from her temples, and it seemed to her she would have fallen without the support of those strong hands. Then he bent to kiss her upon the brow.

Goddess!
her spirit cried, and felt consciousness ignited by a white flame that surged downward as he kissed her lips, her breasts, and knelt to bless her womb. In that moment she was aware of her own essence as she had never been before, and yet at the same time, all selfhood was subsumed in Another, and whether that Presence was a part of her or she of it, or
Her,
Eilan could not say. What she knew beyond question was that in a sense that surpassed even the comfort of Gaius's arms around her, she was no longer alone.

Eilan burned and was not consumed, and it seemed to her that the voice she had heard sang in tones of flame—

Her awareness flared with images of blood and splendor, battles and stone cities and a green tor above an inland sea, fire and sword and finally a fair-haired man with Gaius's eyes who rode to battle with the image of the Lady on his shield.

"I will!” came her reply. "But do not leave me alone—”

"Daughter, I am always here,”
came the reply.
"Thou art Mine, from age to age while Time endures.”

She knew that she had heard those words before, that this was only the renewing of an ancient bond, but the love that lapped her was becoming a sea in which she drowned, a light in which all awareness was consumed.

Eilan's next conscious thought was of floating in cool water. She sensed dark trees around her, and moonlight, and in the next moment many hands had hold of her and were lifting her to the shore. She blinked in amazement as she realized that she was lying beside the bathing pool in the stream below the House of Maidens.

Eilan tried to speak and found she could not. She realized then that what had happened to her was a mystery too deep for telling, even here. And yet she wondered that they could not see it, for the Divine Heat still blazed within her so that her skin dried as soon as they helped her rise from the pool. In silence the other women clad her in a robe of new linen dyed the deep blue that the consecrated priestesses wore.

"You have journeyed between the worlds; you have seen the light that is without shadow; you have been purified…” said a voice Eilan recognized as Caillean's. She looked up, but it was the woman she had seen on the parapet in her vision who seemed to be standing there. "Daughter of the Goddess, arise, that your sisters may welcome you—”

The priestesses helped her to her feet and fell in behind her as she followed Caillean along the path that led to the Sacred Grove.

By the light of the torches that flickered among the trees Eilan saw that Lhiannon was waiting, attended by Eilidh. Beside her stood Dieda, her eyes as huge and dazzled as Eilan knew her own must be, and her hair clinging to her brow in damp tendrils.
What,
Eilan wondered,
happened to her?
Their eyes met, and all the barriers that the past years had built between them vanished; they remembered only that they were sisters now.

I am glad that we will be making our vows together
…she thought. The testing was always the same, but each priestess received the vision the gods willed. Dieda, she supposed, would have found music. She looked at the other girl, and it seemed to her that the Goddess smiled back at her from Dieda's eyes.

Eilan looked around her and saw that they were all here—Miellyn and Eilidh and the others who had taught her for the past three years. But in each woman's face she saw a reflection of the light of the Otherworld, and in some of them, something more, a hint of faces she had seen in her visions, constantly changing and yet always the same.

Why do men fear death when we will live again?
Eilan wondered then. The Druids taught that the soul could take many forms through the circling years, and she had always thought she believed it, but now she knew that it was true.

At last she understood Caillean's serenity, and the holiness that despite her fragility and fallibility, she sensed in Lhiannon. They too had been where she had gone, and no mortal accidents could change the truth of it.

She heard the words of the ceremony as if in a dream, and made her vows without hesitation, for the most important promise, the one that included and commanded all others, had already been made to the Goddess in the Otherworld. With the blood still singing in her veins, and the light of the Lady in her eyes, she scarcely felt the prick of the thorn as the blue crescent that proclaimed her priestess was drawn between her brows.

I
t was the tradition in the Forest House that after the priestesses took their vows they should undergo a period of seclusion. Eilan was grateful. During the days that followed her initiation she lay as exhausted as Lhiannon after giving an Oracle, and even when she recovered physically, she found her attention focused inward as she tried to understand what had occurred.

Sometimes the Druid's words to her seemed impossible—a demented dream born of her frustrated love for Gaius. But when the priestesses gathered in the frosty darkness to salute the winter moon, Eilan would find her spirit lifted as the women's voices soared. At such times, when the moonlight filled her like a silver flame, she knew that what she had experienced was no dream.

Sometimes she found Caillean watching her rather curiously, but not even when the older priestess taught them the secrets of the Wise Ones who had come over the sea—the lore that only the sworn priestesses were allowed to learn—did Eilan feel free to speak of the Merlin and the destiny she believed he had offered her. For gradually she had realized that whatever ecstasies the other priestesses experienced in their initiations, this mystery had been for her alone. And so the dark days of winter passed and lengthened into spring, and the mark of the Goddess healed upon Eilan's brow.

 

Gaius lounged on the bench in his father's office at Deva, breathing deeply of the breeze that came through the open window and wondering how soon he could get away. For a year he had been attached to his father's staff, and he was tired of fortress walls. Spring was overwhelming the fields and woodlands. He could smell apple blossom on that breeze, and it made him think of Eilan.

"Most of the men will be taking leave for the Floralia, but I don't want too many of my officers away at one time.” His father's voice seemed to come from far away. "When you're up for leave where will you go?”

"I hadn't thought about it,” Gaius blurted out. Some of the officers used their free time to go hunting, but killing things for sport no longer particularly interested him. Really, there was nowhere he wanted to be.

"You might go and see the Procurator,” his father suggested. "You haven't met his daughter yet.”

"And if the gods are kind to me I never will,” Gaius returned abruptly to the present and sat up. His father looked pained.

"Now, how could it possibly hurt you,” Macellius inquired, obviously holding on to his temper, "just to see the girl? I think she's already fifteen years old.”

"Father, I
know
she's marriageable. How stupid do you think I am, anyway?”

His father only smiled. "I haven't said a word about marrying her.”

"You don't have to,” Gaius said sullenly. If he could not have Eilan, he was damned if he would marry any woman in Britain—let alone one his father suggested.

"You don't have to be rude,” his father said. "As a matter of fact, I was thinking of spending the holidays in Londinium, and—”

"Well, I wasn't,” Gaius said, no longer caring what his father thought of his manners. He did not know where he would go but it would be as far away from Londinium as he could possibly get.

"I hope you're not thinking of that British girl again,” Macellius commented, almost, Gaius thought, as if his father were reading his mind. If only he had left it at that. But Macellius went on to say, "I'm sure you've had the sense to put her out of your mind for good and all.”

And that decided him. "As a matter of fact,” he said deliberately, "I was thinking of going to see Clotinus.” It had been after staying with the British lord, after all, that he had first met Eilan, and he could at least enjoy the memories.

Gaius enjoyed the trip southward, thinking of Eilan, and of Cynric who might have been his friend and was lost to him, through no fault of their own. Spring was advancing like a conquering army, and the weather was beautiful; mornings clear and cold, making him glad to be warmly clad, and days warm, bright and almost dry except for a sprinkle of soft rain late in the day. Clotinus greeted him gladly and welcomed him, and although Gaius knew it was mostly that Clotinus wished to keep on the best of terms with the powerful Romans, he enjoyed it anyway. Gwenna had gone away to be married, so there was no one to trouble him.

The household of Clotinus, he realized, was not at all a bad place to spend a vacation. The food was good, and even Clotinus's remaining daughter, only twelve or so, was good company, and sympathetic enough when he told her that his father had tried to arrange a marriage for him with an unknown. She might well have been offering to console him on some subtle level but Gaius remembered—not before time, he thought—what his father had said about entangling himself with native women. If the girl was sending him any wordless signals, he pretended not to notice them.

But except for prayers dimly directed at Venus, he could think of no way to approach Eilan. In sleep he ground himself against his blankets, moaning, and waking, knew that it was of Eilan that he had dreamed.

I love her,
he thought in self-pity, when the hopelessness of his situation overwhelmed him.
It isn't as if I meant to seduce and abandon the girl. I'd be happy to marry her if I could get the permission of all the people who seem to have made it their business to control our lives.
After all, he was twenty-three, and an officer—though a very minor one—in his Legion. If that did not make him old enough to marry at his own will, how old would he have to be?

One day when he was riding out under the excuse of hunting, he found himself traveling past the burned-out walls that once had been the house of Bendeigid, and he realized he must be somewhere in the vicinity of the Forest House. His leg ached a bit as he remembered the boar pit—it seemed to him very long ago—and the first time he had ever laid eyes on Eilan.

I cannot stay here
…he thought suddenly.
Every tree and stone will bring back painful memories.
He had thought he could bear it. Certainly seeing old Ardanos from time to time in Deva had not troubled his peace. Perhaps he should ride south to visit his mother's people. It would not please Macellius, but he did not much care to please his father just now.

That night before the fire he spoke of it to Clotinus, who urged him to remain another day or two.

"There will be too many folk on the road till the festival,” Clotinus pointed out. "You should stay until that is past at least and then you can travel in comfort.”

"People won't bother me, but perhaps I should not travel in full uniform,” said Gaius. "I will make better time and attract less attention if I wear the common dress of a Briton.”

"That's true,” Clotinus grinned sourly. "You are, in a sense, one of us. I daresay I can come up with something that will serve.”

The next morning his steward produced clothing which fitted Gaius well enough: tan breeches and a tunic dyed green, in new cloth, clean and decent but not particularly luxurious, and with them a voluminous dark brown cloak of heavy wool. "The nights are still chilly, lad,” Clotinus said. "You will need this when darkness falls.”

When Gaius put it on his Roman identity seemed to fall away.

"You are no longer Gaius Macellius Severus in this garb.” The old man eyed him oddly. Gaius grinned. "As I think I told you, my mother called me Gawen while she lived; now I look nothing else and I should use only that name.”

Clotinus was quick to exclaim how well the clothing became him, yet somehow Gaius knew the man regretted the disappearance of his important-looking Roman guest.

"If I attend the festival, I will be just another Briton,” Gaius went on. "Maybe I should have you send a message to Macellius that I am traveling in disguise!” He suspected his father would not be pleased, and the excuse of gathering information might justify this escapade.

 

When Eilan woke on Beltane morning she had the oddest feeling that Gaius was somewhere near.
Perhaps,
she thought,
he is thinking of me.
It was Beltane, after all, and all their most significant meetings had been at that festival. It was natural, in any case, that her thoughts should turn to him on this day when, throughout the land, the hearts of men and maidens were turning to love.

Here in the chaste sanctuary of the House of Maidens she should not be thinking of such things, or if she did, she should view them with the detached benevolence of one who existed far beyond such fleshly cravings. During the winter that had been easy. It seemed to her that the passion with which the Druid of her vision had touched her had been refined to a radiance as pure as an altar flame, and her vows of chastity no great sacrifice.

But now, when the sap was rising in the trees and every bud was bursting into flower, she was beginning to wonder. When she thought about her vision, her body flamed, and at night she dreamed about lying with a lover who was sometimes the Druid and sometimes Gaius, and sometimes a stranger with the eyes of a king.
My body is still untouched,
she thought suddenly,
but my spirit is virgin no longer. Goddess, how will I bear this sweet pain?

"Eilan, are you helping Lhiannon prepare for this evening's ritual?” Miellyn's voice brought her back to the world and she shook her head. "Then why not come out with the rest of us this morning and enjoy the festival? It will do you good to get some fresh air.”

"The rest of us” turned out to include Senara, who was entirely delighted to be out of doors. It was a crisp bright day, and in the hedges the hawthorn glowed as if the light of the sun had settled on the boughs. The people were jammed together in a way that made Eilan, used to the peace and quiet after her months of seclusion, tremble. How quickly she had grown accustomed to silence and peace, or perhaps her initiation had altered her. She had always been a little uncomfortable in crowds, but she felt now as if she were walking about without her skin.

But Senara was in high spirits as she walked between them. She was fascinated by everything: a stall of round cheeses; a table where a seller of glass bangles had spread his glittering wares; and everywhere, the flowers.

Eilan had not seen so many people since last Beltane when she had met Gaius again. It seemed to her that everyone in Britain or the islands must be here, jostling, laughing, eating, drinking; and every craft from the making of cakes to rope-dancing.

"Will Lhiannon be here during the day?” Senara asked.

Miellyn nodded. "Ardanos will escort her. It is a part of her duty to show herself to the crowds at festivals.” Miellyn paused, and added, "And not the happier part. Between ourselves, I think she is very tired. Every year now, I wonder if it will be her last festival.”

Seeing Eilan's face grow pale, she added, "Does it frighten you? Death is as much a part of life as birth; as a priestess you should know that.”

But the crowds were so thick she could hardly hear what Miellyn was saying. A group of people were watching a man with a dancing bear; Senara cried out that she wanted to see, and they pressed forward for a better view. As people glimpsed the blue linen dresses of priestesses from the Forest House they parted before them till they stood at the ringside, watching the animal dance—or, at least, lumber heavily in a circle on its hind legs, which she supposed was as near as such a beast could come to dancing. The bear's muzzle was tightly wrapped with rope; she thought it looked miserable.

"Poor thing,” she said, and Miellyn sighed.

"Sometimes it comes to me that Lhiannon is like that bear,” the other priestess replied. "Always on display, never speaking her own words.” Eilan gasped at the thought of comparing the High Priestess to a trained animal.

"And who leads her?” Senara giggled. "Miellyn, you should not say such things.”

"Why not? Speaking the truth is usually considered to be a virtue,” Miellyn said stoutly, and Eilan was reminded of Caillean. Her grandfather's treatment of the High Priestess seemed very different from the sovereignty that the Druid of her vision had proclaimed.

"I speak the truth as I see it; and when I see Lhiannon growing so feeble, I wonder—”

Miellyn did not finish her sentence, for at that moment the bear dropped to all fours and lumbered directly toward them. Senara shrieked and jumped away, but the crowd pressed in on every side. Eilan pulled back, stepping on a strange woman's dress, and hearing it rip.

"Watch where you are stepping!” the stranger said peevishly. Eilan apologized, trying to make herself smaller, and at that moment the bear surged forward again, his leading rope coming loose as someone cried out in alarm. The whole crowd pressed backward and when Eilan recovered her balance Miellyn and Senara had disappeared in the crushing crowd.

It was the first time in years that Eilan had been alone. She had grown accustomed to the constant chaperonage of the Forest House. Now it occurred to her that the supervision had another purpose than propriety; the presence of her sisters had helped to keep people away both physically and psychically. Alone, the tumult of alien thoughts and emotions buffeted her like a strong wind. She tried to draw strength from the earth for protection, but the strange faces surrounding her filled her with confusion. How did Lhiannon stand walking among the people when she was already half-tranced and opened to the power of the gods? So hemmed in by the crowd and the press of strangers was she that she could see nothing familiar; not even the avenue of trees that led towards the Forest House, nor the mound from which they gave the Oracles.