The Forest House (24 page)

Once she glimpsed through the crowd what looked like a familiar blue gown; but when she neared it, it was the cloak of a complete stranger. Another time she thought she spotted a group of priestesses; but there were four of them, and by the time it occurred to her that her companions could have met with some others from the Forest House and that they could all be looking for her they had disappeared in the press of strangers again. The temporary landscape of the fair seemed as strange to her as the Otherworld.
This is ridiculous—shielding myself from other people's emotions was the first thing they taught us! I should simply ask someone,
she kept telling herself, but vulnerable as she was, she dared not speak to a stranger; for what would they think of a priestess who could not find the way back to her own dwelling place?

She moved through the crowds, trying to hold reasonless terror at bay. If she could just restore her defenses, she would ask someone in which direction the Forest House lay. Some day, no doubt, she would look back on this day with amusement, as an adventure. Only at the moment there could be no doubt that she was both lost and terrified.

A sudden movement of the crowd swept her almost off her feet; she lost her balance and collided with a man in a dark cloak. He murmured something, then started. "Eilan! Is it really you?” Strong hands seized her elbows and a familiar voice demanded, "Where did you come from?”

And Eilan looked up into the one face which of all the faces in the world she had least expected to see; the face of Gaius Macellius.

Wordless, she clung to him. He felt her trembling and pulled her closer. Abruptly the confusion around her was stilled by the circle of his arms.

"Eilan—” he repeated. "I did not dare dream I would find you here!”

But I did,
thought Eilan dimly.
When I woke this morning my first thought was that you were near; why did I not trust it?

His arms tightened around her; and in that moment she forgot all of Caillean's words of warning, all her own misgivings and fears. She knew only that she was happy.

She laughed a little shakily. "I'm afraid I lost myself; I was trying to return to the Forest House, or at least to the other priestesses who came to the festival, but I was not sure which way to go.”

"The road is over there,” he began, and then at her involuntary movement, broke out, "Must you really go back at once? I came to this—this part of the world, only in the hope of seeing you—”

She could hear, as clearly as if he had spoken,
I cannot bear to let her go now!

"If you go we may never meet again,” he burst out, his voice shaking as he spoke. "I think I could not bear it, to lose you again. Eilan…” His lips hesitated on the sound of her name like a caress; she felt it like a wash of cool fire across her skin. "You cannot leave me…” he murmured into her veil. "It is Fate that has brought you here, alone…”

Not precisely alone!
she thought, smiling at the surging crowds around them. But it was true; only Fate, or the Goddess, could have brought her here, to his arms. Deliberately she set aside the training that had required a sworn priestess in the company of a man who was neither father, grandsire or brother to keep her eyes modestly cast down, and looked at him.

And what had she thought she would see? What could her eyes tell her, she wondered, seeing how strongly his hair still curled off his forehead, the stubborn jut of the jaw beneath the short beard he had grown on his last campaign, and the naked need in his dark eyes, that her heart did not already know? The inner and outer vision came abruptly together, and she saw at once the pinched face of the boy she had nursed four years ago, the strong features of the man he was becoming, and something else, a face battered by experience and discontent, its young promise being eroded by the years.

My poor love,
she thought,
is that what you will be?

"Must you really go?” he repeated, and she murmured, "No.”

Gaius swallowed, and lifted her veil back from her forehead. She felt him stiffen then, and realized that he had noticed for the first time the blue crescent drawn between her brows.

"I am a priestess,” she said quietly and felt him flinch in understanding. But he did not let her go, and she did not pull away.

The very thought that she might not see him again was beginning to take the light from the sky. No doubt Caillean would have told her to leave him at once; but for once she would not do what the older priestess thought wiser, but what she wanted to do. And whatever came of it, this time, at least, Caillean could not be punished for it.

Two drovers blundered into them and backed away, eyeing them oddly as they caught sight of Eilan's blue robes. Gaius frowned and wrapped his brown cloak around her, pulling her veil back up to hide her bright hair.

"Let's get you out of this crowd, anyway,” he muttered. His arm was still around her, strong and steadying, and as they walked on, neither knew quite where they were going, only that they were together, and it was away from the crowds.

"Tell me how came you here. I had no notion that you were in this part of the world.”

"I think I came to see you,” he began, and Eilan leaned against him, listening.

"It was Fate, or perhaps my father. At least I was heading the opposite way to where he wanted me to go! Is little Valeria well?”

"Senara—so we call her in the House of Maidens. Indeed, she is perfectly well, and happy.”

"I am glad to hear it,” he answered, but she could tell that already Senara was forgotten. "Cynric is proscribed, did you know?” Gaius said then, "I met him before he left, and he told me to stay away from you…”

His voice faltered. What did he want to hear from her? wondered Eilan. Maybe only the sound of her voice, to know she was thinking of him. Couldn't he tell? She was aware of him with every sense in her body, every inch of her skin.

"Maybe he's right. My father has taken it into his head that I should marry some Roman girl, the Procurator's daughter in Londinium—”

"Will you obey him?” Eilan asked carefully, her blood pounding. Marriage! Why had he told her? She knew it changed nothing, but why should the thought give her such pain?

Somehow they had reached the edge of the fairgrounds. Another step would hide them in the shelter of the hazel trees. Last night, men and girls had wandered these woods to gather greenery and flowers and to lie with each other on the new grass. The forest still remembered; Eilan could feel the memory of their passion like an echo around her, conflicting with the tumult of the fair.

He turned to face her. "You know I will never marry anyone but you!”

"I cannot marry,” she answered him. "My life is sworn to the gods…”

"Then I will never marry anyone,” he said firmly.

But you will
…Even as the irrational burst of happiness surged through her, foreknowledge tolled in Eilan's awareness. An image flickered in her mind of the woman who would be his wife. And why should Eilan resent her? Was she so selfish that she would wish Gaius to be alone for ever? Or had she wanted him to carry her away, to move heaven and earth to have her released from her vows? What words of men could erase the crescent set between her brows?

She stumbled over a tree root, and Gaius reached out to steady her. Blinking, she realized that they had entered the forest. The noise of the crowds was suddenly faint with distance, as if they had traveled miles away, as if they had stepped into the Otherworld. Great trees hid them in a leaf-dappled shadow. The sun had gone behind a cloud and a chill wind was beginning to blow. Was it going to rain? As if in answer, a few drops blew down on them, the beginnings of rain or perhaps moisture from the upper leaves.

"Eilan…” he whispered, and his grip tightened. "Please—Eilan!”

Turning, she felt the force of his need for her, and the world seemed to stop. From the moment the crowd had swept her away from Miellyn until now, thought Eilan, she had wandered in a dream. But she was awake now, and she could see both past and future with a terrible clarity. Perhaps Fate had brought them here, but what she decided at this moment would determine his future and her own—and perhaps other lives as well. Awareness pulsed outward, embracing other times in an ever-widening circle until she saw once more the bright-haired warrior who had been in her vision, with the Dragons on his wrists and the eagle-look she had learned to love in Gaius in his eyes.

Now it was he who was trembling. With clumsy fingers Gaius put back her veil and his hand, falling, brushed her cheek, for a moment clung there, and then, as if an irresistible force had drawn it downward, slipped along the softness of her neck and came to rest upon the swell of her breast beneath the opening of her gown. The turf stretched soft and green before them. She heard, like an echo,
"The Goddess is not worshipped in a temple made by human hands…”

But it was forbidden—not six months ago she had sworn to give her virginity only to the Sacred King. And like an answer, the certainty came to her.
From this man of two bloods shall spring the King who is to be…
For this, the Merlin had initiated her. This was her destiny.

When they first met, she must have seemed to Gaius a child, but she knew herself immeasurably older now. Like an echo, the voice of the Merlin came to her:

"A priestess of the Goddess gives herself at her own time and season, and when the power has passed through her resumes her sovereignty.”

"By the rites of men we cannot be married,” she said softly. "Are you willing to take me as your wife in the old way, as the priestesses mated with the men of the royal kindred, before the gods?”

He groaned as his hand curved around her breast, and she felt her nipple hardening against his palm. "Till death and after, by Mithras and the Mother,” he muttered. "Eilan, oh, Eilan!”

When the Merlin touched her, the fire had flared from the crown of her head to her heels; but this flame seemed to rise upward from the earth, burning all other thoughts away.

She touched his face and he reached for her. A clumsy hand tangled in her hair and her veil fell unheeded to the ground. Then his lips claimed hers, no longer gentle but demanding, like a starving man. For a moment surprise held her still in his grasp; then she became aware of an answering hunger, and her lips opened, welcoming him.

As they kissed her arms went around his neck; her hair, released from its careful coils, tumbled down her back as hairpins scattered across the grass. Gaius groaned and pulled her against him. Now she could feel the hard strength of his body, and his need. His hands moved from her shoulders down her back, molding her body to his.

Eilan felt the strength going out of her knees. She clung to him, and her weight drew them both downward to the green grass. His lips moved to her cheek, her eyelids, and the soft skin of her neck as if he would devour her, and she arched against him, trembling. Her skirts had ridden upwards as they fell; his exploring hand moved down her body, paused a moment as he touched soft skin, and then brushed upward again beneath the cloth until it came to rest in the sacred place between her thighs.

Gaius grew suddenly still, breathing hard. Then he pulled away, his eyes wide and dazed, as if they had looked into too much light.

"Lady,” he whispered. She could see the tremors shaking him, but somehow he was finding the control to act deliberately, dealing with their clothing, worshipping her body with an authority that grew until the light filled him also and she realized that he was not entirely Gaius any more.

"My King!” she whispered as the flame he had kindled seared along every nerve. "Come to me!”

He sighed then, sinking into her embrace as the sun into the sea, yielding to her even as she gave herself to him. In the distance she could hear shouting, as if it came from another world, and knew that the priests had lit the Beltane fires.

But a greater fire was blazing within her, and by that time, even if Caillean and all the women in the Forest House had been standing in a row watching them, Eilan would neither have known nor cared.

 

The day was far advanced and the sun was setting when Gaius finally stirred. Eilan drew reluctantly away from him; he reached for her once more and kissed her hard.

"I must return to the Forest House,” she said very gently. "They will be looking for me.” Indeed, Miellyn would be beside herself with worry. But if Eilan could manage somehow to get back into the enclosure unseen, they might believe that the crowds had kept them apart and she had somehow found her way back alone.

Even now, when passion had ebbed and she could think clearly once more, Eilan did not regret breaking her vows; the Goddess had known and had not intervened, proof enough that she had served a higher law. Part of the secret doctrine that Caillean had revealed in the months since Eilan's initiation was that before the coming of the Romans, the priestesses had taken lovers as they chose, or even married. It was only since the coming of the Romans that men had had the arrogance to control the private lives of their women. Caillean had never met the man who would tempt her to break her vows, but perhaps she would understand. On the other hand, Caillean would not agree with Eilan's choice of a lover, so perhaps she had better not tell the older priestess after all.