The Forest House (30 page)

It was an entirely new Eilan who allowed them to robe her in the ritual garments. About her forehead they bound the traditional garland. As she felt the vines tighten around her forehead, she had a moment of dizziness, and wondered if this was the first, faraway touch of the Goddess.

She felt strange and light-headed, altogether unlike herself; vaguely she recognized hunger. The sacred herbs in the potion given her at the commencement of the ritual must be taken on an empty stomach, lest they make her very ill. Caillean had once said that she believed that Lhiannon's ill health was partly caused by her protracted use of these herbs. Briefly Eilan wondered if before long her own health would be endangered as well. Then she smiled, thinking there would be time enough to worry about her future if she survived this evening.

They brought her the chased golden bowl with the magical potion of Vision. She knew that it contained berries of mistletoe and other sacred herbs; she had more than once seen Miellyn gathering those herbs. The sacred potion also contained various mushrooms; the common people avoided them, as much for their sacred character as for belief that they were poisonous, and certainly they were useless as food. The priestesses knew, however, that taken in small quantities they could amplify the ordinary clairvoyance in which she had been trained.

Trembling, Eilan did as she had often enough seen Lhiannon do, and took it from Eilidh's hands. Caillean had been right, she thought as she raised the bowl to her lips. She had assisted in this ritual so often that she did know what to do.

And from her ceremonial sips she had thought she knew what to expect from the potion as well. But as she tipped it upward, she realized that the Priestess was required to drain it at a single draft because otherwise no one would ever have been able to get it down. It was intensely bitter, and when she had swallowed it, she began to wonder if it was poison after all. That would have been a good way for Ardanos to get rid of her. But Caillean had assured her that she would prepare the herbs herself and let no one else have access to them, and she had to trust her.

Her head swam and for a moment her stomach revolted. Perhaps her punishment was beginning now. But after a short, sharp struggle she controlled herself, swallowed a few sips of water to clear her mouth of the taste and closed her eyes, waiting.

Presently, the acute feeling of sickness passed. Eilan closed her eyes against the wave of dizziness, and sat down, waiting to recover her balance. Vaguely she remembered that this, too, had been part of the procedure with Lhiannon. At the time, Eilan had thought it the weakness of age. But Lhiannon had really not been so old. Would she, too, age before her time? Well, she could only hope she would have a chance to grow old!

There was a little stir in the room, and the young girls drew away. Eilan realized that Ardanos was standing before her. She lifted heavy eyelids to look at him, and he met her gaze with an unsmiling stare.

“Eilan, I see they have prepared you. You look very beautiful, my dear. The people will be sure the Goddess has come to them…” The kindly words sounded strange from his lips.

Will they?
she wondered muzzily.
And what do you think, old man, if you believe in the Goddess at all? By your rules, these garlands should be withering on my brow!
But it no longer mattered; she felt as if she were floating above all this; with every moment she drifted further away.

“The drink is taking her swiftly,” he muttered, and gestured to the maidens to stand away. “Listen, my child—I know you can still hear me…” His voice slipped into the melodic intonation of ritual as he went on.

Eilan knew that he was saying something of great importance, something that she must remember…what, she was not certain. Time passed, and he was no longer there. Did any of it matter, she wondered then? She felt as if she were floating above a green darkness. The very tops of the trees were far below. She was being carried in something—a litter—then they set her down and helped her to stand. She could feel Caillean beside her and someone else, she thought it was Latis, on her other side. They took her hands and drew her into the procession towards the torches that ringed the sacred mound.

Eilan was aware enough to hang back for a moment when she saw the three-legged stool. There had been some reason why she should not sit there; some sin upon her soul. But her attendants drew her forward, and she thought that if she could not remember it, perhaps it made no difference.

They had sacrificed the sacred bull already and shared its meat among the people. The priests had played out the ritual in which the young god wrested the harvest from the old. Now it was time to seek omens for the autumntide. In the east the harvest moon was rising, golden as the ornaments that her Priestess wore.

Look down on me, Lady,
Eilan fought to form the prayer.
Ward me well!

One of the attendant priestesses had placed in her hand the little curved golden dagger of ritual. She raised the dagger, and with one swift movement plunged it into her fingertip. She felt a sharp pain, and one heavy drop of blood gleamed on the surface; she held it over the golden bowl, letting three drops of blood fall. The bowl was filled to the brim with water from the Sacred Well, and floating on the surface were leaves of the sacred plant, the mistletoe. Planted by no human hand, and growing between air and earth, it partook of the very nature of the lightning which had engendered it.

Now they were turning her; she felt the hard wood against the backs of her knees and sat down. There was a moment of dizziness as the priests lifted her and carried her to the mound. The attendant priestesses had drawn back.

As the priests began to sing Eilan felt as if she were falling, or perhaps rising, borne away by the song in some direction that had no relation to ordinary reality. She wondered why she had been afraid. In this place she floated; needing and wanting nothing, content simply to be…

A blaze of torches assaulted her eyes; below her all the assembled crowd seemed to blur into a single face. Their eyes, upon her were like a weight, a positive physical pressure drawing her back to a place that was in, and yet not of, the world.

“Children of Don, why have you come here?” Ardanos's voice seemed very far away.

“We seek the blessing of the Goddess,” a male voice replied.

“Then call Her!”

Eilan's nostrils flared as smoke swirled around her, heavy with the scent of sacred herbs. Involuntarily she breathed in and her breath caught; the world whirled and she fought for balance; she heard a voice whimpering and did not know it was her own. From below rose the sound of many other voices, calling, calling:

Dark Huntress…Bright Mother…Lady of Flowers, hear us…Come to us, Lady of the Silver Wheel…

I am Eilan…Eilan…
She clung to her own identity, crying out as the need in those voices assaulted her until she felt their pressure as a physical pain. At the same time, another pressure was building up behind her, or perhaps within her, demanding that she let it in. Spasms shook her body as she fought; she felt terror as the Self that she knew was constricted between them; she could not breathe.
Help me!
her spirit cried.

She slumped forward, seeing the glimmer of water before her, and a voice that seemed to come from
within
her said then:

“Daughter, I am always here. To see Me, you have only to gaze into the Sacred Pool.”

“Look into the water, Lady—” a voice that was very near commanded. “Look into the bowl, and
see
!”

An image was forming in the troubled surface of the water, but as it cleared Eilan saw that the face reflected there was not her own. She jerked back in panic, and heard the voice once more.

“My daughter, rest now. Your spirit will be safe with Me…”

With the words came a tide of love that Eilan remembered, and with the same trust with which she had given herself to Gaius she sighed and slid away into the warm comfort of the Lady's arms.

As if from a great distance, she was aware that her body was straightening, she was putting back her veil, lifting her hands to the moon.

“Behold, the Lady of Life has come to us!” in a great voice Caillean cried. “Let us welcome her!”

And the sound of many voices rose like a tide and carried her to a place where she could watch the body she had left behind move and speak with wonder, but with no fear.

As the cheering subsided, the High Priestess sank back on to the seat once more; the identity that filled her waiting in a timeless patience for the response of humankind.

“There are the questions the people bring to you,” the Arch-Druid said, and because he spoke to her in the old speech of the Wise Ones, it was in that language that the Goddess answered him.

After each question the priest turned to the people and said something in the common language. From that far-off realm from which Eilan was listening it seemed to her odd that his statements, if they were translations, had so little to do with what the Goddess replied. That did not seem right, but perhaps she had not heard him clearly, and in this place in which she had found refuge it was hard to care.

The questioning went on, but as time passed, she found her perceptions becoming more and more disjointed. It seemed to her that Ardanos frowned then and leaned close to her.

“Lady, we thank you for your words. It is time to leave this body through which you have spoken. Hail now, and farewell!” He plucked the sprig of mistletoe from the golden bowl and shook droplets of water over her.

For a moment Eilan was blinded, then her body convulsed. Pain stabbed through her and she fell into darkness on a shimmer of silver bells.

 

When awareness began to return Eilan realized that the priestesses were singing. She knew the song; it seemed to her that once she had sung it but, aching and dizzied as she was, she could not sing now. They had removed the constricting garlands from her head, and someone was bathing her brow and hands. Someone gave her water to drink and a voice murmured in her ear.
Caillean
…She felt herself lifted and settled into the carrying chair.

“Hail unto Thee,”
the women sang.

“Jewel of the night!”
the Druids replied.

“Beauty of the heavens…Mother of the stars…Fosterling of the Sun…”
The priestesses held up their white arms to the silver moon.

“Majesty of the stars…”
they sang, and with each chorus,
“Jewel of the night!”
the deep voices of the men replied.

 

A long time later, it seemed, Eilan found herself back in her own bed in the House of the High Priestess. The light of the torches was no longer assaulting her eyes, and the effects of the sacred drink must be wearing off at last, for she found that she could think clearly once more. For some reason a fragment of an ancient ballad was floating in her mind.

“After they stripped her ornaments away, and burned her sacred flowers…”
She could not remember where they had come from, but she knew that her garlands had been thrown on the fire; the sweet scent of their burning had filled the air. Now other things came back to her—the singing of the priestesses, the silver moon.

But though she knew there had been questions, Eilan found she could not remember a word of her replies. Whatever they had been, the populace had seemed to find them satisfactory.

And the Goddess,
she thought then.
She did not strike me dead after all!
At least not yet, though she might yet come to wish She had done so. Eilan's stomach was still unsettled; she felt as if she had been beaten with sticks and would no doubt feel even worse tomorrow. But it was her belly, not her womb, that was aching. She had faced her ordeal and survived.

“Good night, Lady,” said Eilidh from the doorway. “May you rest well.”

Lady
…thought Eilan. It was true, then. She was Lady of Vernemeton now.

 

A few days later Caillean summoned Dieda to the High Priestess's rooms. Eilan sat by the fire, looking pale and strained.

“The time has come for you to keep your word. Eilan is well enough to travel now, and we are sending her into hiding to bear her child.”

“This is ridiculous. Do you really think no one will notice the change?” Dieda said bitterly.

“Since she became High Priestess, she has been veiled so much of the time that few of the women in the house will know the difference, and no doubt they will put it down to the effects of the ritual.”

Cynric would know,
Dieda thought with longing, wishing he would appear and carry her away. But it had been over a year since she had heard from him. Even if he knew, would he have come?

“Your father is grateful to you,” said Caillean.