The Forest House

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  For the first time, her father smiled, albeit shakily. "It will please your grandsire, at any rate. I had not intended this life for you, Eilan, but if it is truly what you want, then I am pleased too."

  "But what —" Eilan bit back the words. How could she have forgotten? Her mother would never say anything more to her at all. But her father seemed to have sensed what she could not say. He sank down again by the hearth, his face buried in his hands. She had never guessed that her father could weep. But when he looked up again she saw his cheeks streaked with tears.

  Eilan was likewise bereft, but she had no tears. Will Gaius think me dead when he hears? Will he weep for me? Better, perhaps, that he should think her dead than faithless to his memory. But it did not matter; she would be a priestess of the Forest House. Beyond that she could not make her mind go.

  "They shall be avenged!" exclaimed the Druid, gazing into the flames. "In all of Britain shall those wild devils find no lives so costly as these! Even the Romans have never dared so far, and I tell you I would accept help even from them to get revenge! This will mean war! For it is not only rapine and murder, Eilan; it is sacrilege. To attack the home of a Druid, kill the wife and daughter and granddaughter of Druids; and destroy the sacred things - how could they do it? The Northerners are our kinsfolk, and I have studied with the Druids of Eriu."

  "It has ever been the way of our people to fight each other when there was no common enemy," Caillean quietly observed.

  "But we do have such an enemy," exclaimed Bendeigid. "Do not we all hate Rome?"

  "Perhaps the wild tribes think of us as Romans now . . ."

  The Druid shook his head. "The gods will surely punish them; and if they do not, our people will. Cynric has been as a son to me, and I tell you, he will curse when he hears of this day! But he is away in the islands to the north. You and Mairi are all that are left to me, Eilan."

  Indeed, she thought, remembering. I have so few kin left and Dieda too has lost a sister. Will she welcome me to the Forest House?

  Well, whatever came of it, a priestess she would be. Of her father's blood remained Mairi, and her newborn daughter, and her son; she wished that these children might be a comfort to her father. He was not yet old; he might marry again and have others of his own or, more likely, Mairi would find a new husband and have more. But if Eilan went to the Forest House, he would get no grandchildren from her.

  Bendeigid rose, looking at Caillean beneath bent brows. "I am in need now of your skills, priestess; Cynric must be recalled. Can you summon him for me? And will you do so?"

  "With Lhiannon's help, I can," Caillean replied. "In any case she would need to know —"

  "I also need your skills to seek out these men," Bendeigid interrupted.

  "That is easily done; I saw them when they burst in here, and if they were not among those who burned your home yet they must be under the same command. Some of them were Caledonians, and the others Scotti from Eriu."

  "If they came here last night, the Scotti would have been on their way back to the coast and the Caledonians on their way north again." Bendeigid had risen to pace restlessly; now he resumed his seat by the fire. Caillean brought him a mug of ale and he sank his beard in it for a long draught, then repeated, "We need Cynric home, faster than even a mounted man can ride. Send the message, Caillean, with your magic —"

  "I will," said the priestess. "I will stay here with your daughters while you ride to tell Lhiannon. Then go to Deva, for the Arch-Druid must know as well."

  "You are right; my wife Rheis was his daughter," Bendeigid said, rubbing his brow distractedly. "Perhaps he will have some counsel for us as well."

  News of the raid spread quickly through the countryside. On the lips of wandering peddlers it travelled, and with couriers of the Legions; it seemed that the birds of the air themselves bore the news on their wings.

  Three days after the raid, Ardanos, the Arch-Druid, coming out of his house in Deva in the morning, heard a raven croak on his left and recognized an omen of disaster. But he had earned his rank by the kind of worldly wisdom that enabled him to out-think the Romans and undermine opposition among his own people. Not for the first time he regretted the worldly limit of his powers. Then he saw the mud-spattered man coming up the street and knew that he would not have to wait for the raven to tell him, for grief was written plainly in his son-in-law's burning eyes.

  When Ardanos had recovered a little from the shock of Bendeigid's news, he went to Macellius Severus, who demanded a hearing from the Commander of the Adiutrix Legion.

  "These raiders from over the sea grow too bold," Macellius said angrily. "These Britons too are our people, wards of Rome. No one shall oppress them while I live. The family of one of the Druids who lives near by, Bendeigid —"

  "A proscribed man," interrupted the Commander of the Legion, frowning. "He should not be here at all!"

  "That makes no difference! Do you not understand that Rome is here to protect all the men of this country — our citizens and the natives as well," Macellius insisted, still haunted by the memory of Ardanos's grief. Over the years he had come to respect the old man, and he had never known the Arch-Druid to be other than perfectly collected before. "How can we persuade them to lay down their arms if we cannot then protect them? With two Legions we could conquer Hibernia —"

  "You may well be right, but it will have to wait until Agricola is finished with the Novantae. It has always been that way - with each province we settle we must pacify a new frontier. In the days of the Governor Paulinus, the Druids of Mona were broken so that they could not set the West Country afire. Now it is the Caledonians who must be taught they cannot raid the Brigantae. I suppose that when the Empire stretches to Ultima Thule we will have a peaceful border, but I doubt it will happen before.

  "In the meantime all we can do is to hurry the construction of the new coastal fortresses," said the Legion's commander cynically, "and ready a troop or two of cavalry to go out if they should be sighted again. Your son is out there now with some troops, isn't he? Detail him to this duty when he reports in." The Commander grunted. "The people of Britannia are ours to oppress, and no one else shall do it."

  But building fortresses and planning campaigns took time. Long before the log walls were finished or the grain that had survived the rains had been harvested, Bendeigid returned to escort his daughters to the Forest House. He brought gently paced mules for Mairi and the children to ride. Eilan rode with Mairi's older child before her, warmly wrapped against the light rain. She was not used to riding and it took all her concentration to balance behind the excited child. The distance was not great, but the unaccustomed journey seemed long.

  Darkness was just falling as they came within the palisaded walls. Within the compound were half a dozen large buildings; Caillean took Mairi and her children to a guest house, lifting the little boy down from his perch before Eilan, and pointed out a large building of stout timbers, thatched almost down to the ground.

  "There is the House of Maidens," she said. "The chief of the younger priestesses, Eilidh, has been told of your coming, and she will welcome you there. I will come later when I can; but first I must go and see if Lhiannon needs me."

  The new moon - the first of Mairi's newborn's life — rode low on the western horizon. As the serving woman led her into the building and across an inner enclosure, Eilan was surprised to, find that already she missed her sister.

  Then a gate opened and the woman led her into the inner court. Ahead of her was a long building something like her father's feasting hall. As she passed through the door a sea of strange faces surrounded her. She looked around, feeling abandoned. The serving woman had left her alone at the door. The hall seemed very large and there was a faint scent of sweet herbs in the air. Then one of the priestesses came forward.

  "I am Eilidh," she said.

  "Where is my kinswoman, Dieda?" asked Eilan nervously. "I had hoped to see her here —"

  "Dieda attends on Lhiannon and is secluded
with her in preparation for the rites of Lughnasad," said the priestess. "She is your cousin? I would have thought you even more closely akin; even twins.

  "Caillean has asked me to take you in charge, for now that she is back she will have to attend Lhiannon. You are almost as beautiful as she told me."

  Eilan colored shyly and lowered her eyes. The priestess was herself quite beautiful; fair-haired, with curly short hair that circled her face in the lamplight, like a delicate halo. She was dressed like the other junior priestesses, not in the dark robes they wore outside the walls but in a dress of undyed linen of an extremely old-fashioned cut, girdled with a woven belt of green.

  "You must be half dead with fatigue," Eilidh said kindly. "Come to the fire, child, and get warm."

  Eilan obeyed, feeling a little stunned by all the strange faces. She had not thought what might confront her here. Now she wondered what she would find, and whether she had made a decision she would regret all her life.

  "Don't be afraid of us," said a grave voice behind her. The new speaker was tall and sturdy, with reddish hair. "There aren't half as many of us as there seem to be. You should have seen me when I first came here, staring about me and sobbing like a wild thing. My name is Miellyn. I have been here five or six years, and now I cannot imagine any other life. All my friends are here, and one day you will have friends here too. For all that we must seem so strange to you now." She took Eilan's cloak from her, and laid it aside.

  "I think Lhiannon wishes to speak with you before anything else," said Eilidh, "so come with me." So saying, she led Eilan across a blustery courtyard to a separate dwelling and rapped on the door. After a moment they heard footsteps and Caillean peered out.

  "Eilan? Come in, child," she said, gesturing to someone behind her. "Dieda, you see, I have brought Eilan to you at last."

  "So you have," said Dieda, emerging from the shadows behind her. "My father, the Arch-Druid, is here too; and Bendeigid, so we shall be a regular family party, I suppose." She laughed, and Eilan thought she had never heard so cynical a sound. "And if he has his way Cynric will be brought here as well. I have heard they want to use your Sight, Caillean."

  "Or yours, perhaps," said Caillean, and Dieda laughed a little. Eilan sensed hostility between the two and wondered why.

  "I think they know what I would say to that," Dieda said. "If it is to seek out Cynric, yes; but to make an oracle for Lhiannon to deliver obediently as if she were no more than a puppet for the will of Rome —"

  "In the name of the Goddess, any goddess, be silent, child," Caillean ordered, listening to a gate slamming somewhere near by. "What is it? Who is here?"

  "Only his holiness, my father," Dieda muttered, "and the greatest priestess of all the Forest House, who will obediently deliver such oracles as he shall desire."

  "Be silent, you wretched creature," hissed Caillean. "You well know that what you say is sacrilege."

  "Or perhaps there is a greater sacrilege here, in which I have no part," Dieda replied. "Perhaps, with Sight, they want to make certain they send the Romans against the right party. If so, what will you do, Caillean?"

  "I will do whatever Lhiannon commands," said Caillean, her voice sharpening. "As we all do."

  Caillean was trying to speak reasonably to soften Dieda's wrath; but the other girl seemed angrier than ever. Dieda had always been sharp-tongued, but Eilan had never heard her so bitter before.

  "I know what you would have us think —" Dieda began, but Caillean's face flushed with anger. Still she spoke calmly.

  "You know perfectly well that it is not what you think, or what I think, that matters," she began, "but what the High Priestess wills; and that is what I will do."

  "If it is her will," Dieda answered more quietly, "but under present conditions, how can Lhiannon's will be done - even if her will could somehow be determined or if she even has one any more." ,

  "Dieda, I have heard this all before," Caillean said wearily. "But is it such an evil thing to summon our kinsman Cynric so that he may fittingly mourn his foster mother?"

  "We could have done that weeks ago," Dieda began.

  "Perhaps, but that is all that you - or I - are being asked to do," Caillean repeated. "Why have you set yourself so stubbornly against it now?"

  "Because I know, if you do not," Dieda said, "that this use of power is to trick Cynric into doing what his whole life has been spent in learning to oppose; what Bendeigid himself would rather die than do, and that is to clasp hands with Rome. Know you not that for his sake it was that Bendeigid allowed himself to be proscribed?"

  "Oh, in the name of the Goddess, girl! I know something of Cynric too, and of Bendeigid," said Caillean crossly. "And, believe it or not, even something of the Romans; at least I have lived under their rule longer than you. And I say that there shall be no violence done to your precious ethical precepts, nor to Cynric's. Do you think, perhaps, that you are the only person in all of Britannia who knows what Cynric wishes to do?"

  "I know enough —" Dieda began, but Caillean said harshly "Hush; they will hear us. And Eilan must be thoroughly confused by now -"

  Dieda's face softened. "I suppose so, and it is an ill welcome for her to hear us disputing so." She came and embraced Eilan, who knew enough not to protest lest she start the argument again.

  At this moment the inner door opened and Lhiannon stood before them.

  "Children, are you quarreling?"

  "Of course not, my mother," said Caillean quickly. And after a moment Dieda added, "No, certainly not, Holy Mother; we were only welcoming the new novice."

  "Ah, yes; I heard that Eilan was to come," said Lhiannon, and turned her gaze on the young girl who stood quietly between them. Eilan felt her heart thump loudly as she looked at the woman she had last seen standing like a goddess beside the Beltane fire.

  "So you are Eilan?" Lhiannon's voice was sweet but a little thin, as if being the mouthpiece of the Goddess for so many years had worn its strength away. "It is true; you are very like Dieda; I suppose you are weary of being told that. But we must devise some way to tell you apart here at the shrine." She smiled, and Eilan felt an odd surge of protectiveness.

  Lhiannon reached out one hand to Eilan, who was still standing nervously by the door. "Come in, child. Your father and grandfather are here with us, you know." Eilan wondered why she should be surprised, since her father had escorted her here. Was he then living among the priests?

  Lhiannon took Eilan's arm gently and drew the girl into the inner room, adding to the two older priestesses, in her sweet voice, "Come in too. Both of you will be needed here."

  The inner room seemed small, or perhaps it was only that too many people had crowded into it. Smoke curled thickly from herbs burning in a brazier in the center of the room; their smell made Eilan's head swim. Between the smoke and the crowd, for a moment she found it hard to breathe.

  After a moment her focus steadied and she saw her father, his face made gaunt by the past moon's grief until he looked almost as old as Ardanos.

  Her grandfather, who was adding something to the fire, looked up at the women and said, "So we are all here. And once again I am confused; which of you is which?"

  Eilan stood silent, waiting for someone older to answer, but Dieda said boldly, "It is easy to tell, Father. Eilan has not yet been given the dress of a priestess."

  "So that is how you expect me to tell my daughter from my granddaughter! Well, perhaps it is only the smoke in here. But I still find them too much alike for my comfort," said the older Druid briskly. "So, Eilan, you have arrived here at a sad time; we must summon Cynric to our Councils, and as he has been brought up with you as a foster brother your assistance will be helpful. Are you ready, Caillean?"

  Caillean said quietly "If Lhiannon wills it."

  "I do," Lhiannon answered. "Whatever comes of this, Cynric must know of the death of his foster mother and of these new outrages. The Romans are not our only enemies -"

  Dieda said quietly through her teeth
, "How would you like to say that to Mairi at this moment, Father?"

  "Peace, child," Ardanos said. "Whatever you may think, Macellius Severus is a good man; he was as angry when I told him as if his own house had been burnt."

  "I doubt that," Dieda murmured, but low enough so that only Caillean and Eilan could hear. ,

  The old Druid frowned at her; then he said, "Caillean, my child -"

  Caillean, with a glance at Lhiannon, went to a cupboard and took out a small silver bowl, simple but for an elaborate chasing of patterns on the outside. She filled it with water from a ewer and set it on the table. Ardanos pulled up a three-legged stool so that she could sit down before it, while Lhiannon took her place in a carved chair near by.

  Ardanos waved Caillean aside. "Wait," he said; "Dieda, it was you who were closest to him; it is you who must look into the water and summon him."