"Ardanos is my mother's father, not mine. Dieda is his daughter," Eilan told her, gathering up the last of the thyme.
"And your foster brother is one of the Sacred Band?" Miellyn asked. "Truly you come from a priestly family. They will probably try to make you a priestess of the Oracle one day."
"No one has said anything about it to me," Eilan answered her.
"Would you dislike it?" Miellyn laughed at her. "The rest of us have our duties, and I, for one, am happy with my herbs. But the seeresses are the ones the people worship. Would you not like to be the voice of the Goddess?"
"She has not said anything to me," the girl answered, a little sharply.
It was no business of Miellyn's what Eilan might secretly long for, or the feelings that had stirred in her when she saw Lhiannon lift her arms in invocation to the moon. The longer she stayed here, the more vividly she remembered her childhood dreams, and every time she carried offerings to the shrine at the spring she stared into the water, hoping to see the Lady once more.
"I will be whatever my elders say. They know more about what the gods want than I."
Miellyn laughed. "Oh, perhaps some of them may; but I am not sure," she said. "Caillean would not say so. She told me once that the knowledge of the Druids is that which was given to all people, both men and women alike in the old days."
"And yet even the High Druid defers to Lhiannon," Eilan said, as she bent to cut a few leaves from a bunch of stitchwort she had found growing on the sunny side of a great rock.
"Or seems to," Miellyn said. "But Lhiannon is different, and of course we all adore her —"
Eilan frowned. "I have heard some of the women say that even my grandfather would not dare to cross her."
"Sometimes I wonder," Miellyn said as she sorted through the leaves Eilan had cut. "Cut them closer to the branch; we cannot use the stems. Do you know, I have heard that in the old days the laws required that any man who cut a tree must plant another in its place so the woods would never be less. That has not been done since the Romans came here; they cut trees and plant nothing, so one day there will be no trees in all Britain —"
"There seem to be as many as ever," said Eilan.
"Some seed and grow of themselves." Miellyn turned and gathered up the plants they had cut.
"What about the herbs?" asked Eilan.
"We have not cut enough to make any difference; enough shoots will grow up in a day or two to replace what we have taken. That is enough. I think it may rain; we should hurry back. The priestess who taught me herb lore used to say that the wilderness is the garden of the Goddess, and men cannot gather from it without replacing what they use!"
"I had not heard before, stated in just that way, but, but I think it is beautiful," Eilan said. "I suppose, if you think in centuries, that to cut down a tree is as foolish as slaughtering a breeding doe -"
"And yet some men believe - or seem to believe - that they have the right to do what they will to anything weaker than they are," Miellyn said. "I do not understand how the Romans can do what they do."
"The better ones among them would be as angry as you and I at some of the outrages," Eilan ventured. She was thinking of Gaius. He had seemed almost as angry as Cynric when he heard the story of the Romans on Mona. She could not imagine him slaughtering the helpless; and yet he must know perfectly well how short and dreadful a life could be expected by the Roman levies in the mines, ill-fed, poorly clothed, and breathing the poisoned dust of the ore they mined. If this punishment were limited to criminals and murderers it would be bad enough, but the byre-woman's husband?
Yet Gaius believed that the Romans were making civilized people of barbarians. Perhaps he had never really thought about the mines, because being taken to them had never happened to anyone he knew. Even she had not thought about it much until it happened to one of their own. But if she did not know what was going on, surely her father and grandfather did, and they had done nothing to stop it either.
The wind gusted round to the west and suddenly the clouds let loose their burden of rain. Miellyn squealed and pulled her shawl up over her head. "We'll be drowned if we stay here!" she exclaimed. "Pick up your basket and come! If we run, we'll be indoors before we're wet through."
But the girls were soaked by the time they came into the central hall of the priestesses. Eilan felt Miellyn had welcomed the opportunity to run.
"Get yourselves dry now, lasses, or you'll catch a rheum and I'll be using up all my medicines nursing you!" Latis, who was so old now she could no longer go into the forest to gather the herbs, cackled with laughter and shooed them towards the door. "But mind you come back then to lay out the herbs you've brought me, or they'll mildew and both the plants and your labor will be wasted!"
Skin still glowing from brisk rubbing, Miellyn and Eilan returned to the still-room. Built on behind the kitchen where heat from the ovens kept the air warm and dry, the rafters were festooned with bunches of hanging herbs. Woven trays upon which roots or leaves were spread to dry hung beneath them, turning lazily. Shelves with earthenware crocks stood along one wall, and bags and baskets of prepared herbs were stored along another, neatly labeled with the sigils of the herbalists' craft. The air was pungent.
"You're Eilan, are you not?" Latis peered at her. She looked rather like a dried root herself, thought Eilan, seamed and wrinkled with age. "Goddess help us, they get younger every year!"
"Who does, Mother?" asked Miellyn, hiding her grin.
"The girls they send to serve the Priestess of the Oracle."
"I told her she would be sent for training to the Lady soon," Miellyn said. "Well, Eilan, do you believe me now?"
"Oh, I believed you," Eilan said, "but I thought surely it would take someone older and with more skills than me."
"Caillean would say that they do not want anyone too learned near Lhiannon for fear she would ask too many questions. If the Priestess were forced to think about what she was doing, the Oracles she gives might not always serve the Druids' policies so conveniently."
"Miellyn, hush," Latis exclaimed. "You know you must not say such things — not even in a whisper!"
"I will speak the truth and if the priests object, I will ask them by what right they ask me to lie." But Miellyn lowered her voice. "Eilan, be careful; you are holding that basket aslant. We took enough trouble to gather these leaves, I do not want them dirtied by a fall to the floor."
Eilan readjusted the angle of the basket she was holding.
"There are some truths which should never be spoken aloud, not even in a whisper," Latis went on soberly.
"Yes," Miellyn said, "so I am told; and usually they are the truths that should be proclaimed from the rooftops."
"In the sight of the gods this may very well be true," replied the other. "But you know very well we are not in the presence of the gods, but of men."
"Well, if the truth cannot be spoken in a house built by the Druids," Miellyn replied stoutly, "where in the name of the gods can it be?"
"The gods alone know!" said Latis. "I have survived so long by sticking to my herbs, and you would do well to do the same. They, at least, speak true."
"Eilan doesn't have that choice," said Miellyn. "She'll be tied to the High Priestess for the next six moons."
"Remain true to yourself, child." Old Latis touched her chin so that Eilan could not look away. "If you know your own heart, you will always have one friend who does not lie."
The priestess had spoken the truth. With the coming of the next moon, Eilan was brought to Lhiannon and taught the ceremonious etiquette for attending upon the High Priestess in public, which, in effect, meant every time that Lhiannon went out of her own dwelling in the Forest House. She learned the rituals of robing Lhiannon for the ceremonies, which was more complicated than it looked; for from the beginning of the ritual, not even with a fingertip's weight could any human being touch the Priestess. She shared with Lhiannon the long ritual seclusion with which the Priestess prepared for the rites, and
helped her through the physical collapse that followed.
That was when she learned the price Lhiannon paid for the great reverence in which she was held. For the delivery of the word of the gods there was a heavy reckoning. Vague and forgetful as Lhiannon, in her own person, might sometimes be, when she assumed the ornaments of the Oracle another power came upon her. She had been chosen, Eilan realized, not so much for force of will or wisdom, but because when it was needful, she was able to let her own personality go.
It was then, when the human identity had been put off with her ordinary clothes, that Lhiannon opened herself so that the Goddess might speak through her. And in those moments, she was a great priestess indeed — almost, Eilan thought, more than human. The price of becoming the vehicle for so great a power was both physical and mental, and Eilan's respect for the older priestess grew as she saw Lhiannon pay it without grudging the cost, or at least without complaint.
When Eilan left the Forest House and the woods around for the first time she was accompanying Lhiannon. It was then that she realized how the preceding weeks had changed her. Even the House of Maidens seemed remote and strange. When the newest novices scurried out of her way she scarcely noticed, and only afterwards realized that they had seen in her the same unearthly serenity she associated with Lhiannon.
It was, she supposed, a fairly ordinary Midsummer Festival. She had seen the Games and the market and the lighting of the big sun-fire many times before, but after her months of seclusion in the Forest House, the yammering of so many people was painful, and she shrank from the strong scents of humans and horses. Even the bright cloths the merchants had put up to shade their wares assaulted her senses.
Midsummer was a time when men put forth their strength in competitions, to entertain the gods and the people, and to strengthen the crops as they grew. But as Eilan watched the footraces and the wrestling it was the sweating bodies of the competitors that seemed the most gross and distorted of all. She could not imagine why she had ever wanted to lie with a man.
The winner of the Games was garlanded with summer flowers and escorted to preside over the ceremonies. Remembering what she had learned of the Mysteries, Eilan watched with a new appreciation. In time of need, or in some tribes every seven years, the new Year-King would have watched his predecessor burn, and even now some of the old sacredness attached to him. The Empire had killed or Romanized the heirs of the British princes, but so long as men were willing to offer their lives for the people, they could not eradicate the Sacred Kings, who each year stood surety for those who no longer understood their role.
If there were some great disaster, and a sacrifice were needed during the coming year, despite the Romans' prohibitions it was on this young man that the blow would fall. And, in recognition of his risk, he alone of all men was allowed to lie with whichever woman took his fancy - even a maiden from the Forest House if it was there that his eye should fall.
Eilan kept close to Lhiannon, watching as the warriors snatched brands from the great bonfire and vied to throw them high to make the crops grow. The people had grown rowdy with drink and the release of the festival. But no one would trouble her while she was with the High Priestess. Even the Year-King had never been known to push his rights that far.
She sat with Caillean and Dieda, glad of the protection of Lhiannon's presence and the hulking strength of her bodyguard Huw behind them, and hoped that the other priestesses who had come with them to the festival had fared as well.
It was not until several weeks had passed that she learned why her friend Miellyn had come away from the festivities so pale and thoughtful, and why she was so often ill. It was Eilidh who told her, one day when Miellyn was nowhere to be found, but by then everyone in the Forest House was buzzing with the news.
"She is pregnant, Eilan," Eilidh murmured and shook her head as if she still found it amazing. "By the winner of the games. Lhiannon was troubled and very cross when she learned of it, and has sent Miellyn to the seclusion of the hut by the white pool to meditate alone for a time."
"That is not fair!" exclaimed Eilan. "If he chose her, how could she deny him? It would be an impiety." Had the priests forgotten their own theology?
"The older priestesses are saying she should have kept herself out of his way. There is no shortage of women in this part of Britain, after all. I would have found a way to evade him if he had started looking at me!"
Eilan had to admit that she too would have sought some way to avoid being chosen. But when Miellyn reappeared among them, her loose robes no longer able to hide her rounding body, she had the sense not to say so.
And so the summer rolled on, and time came round to the second anniversary of her arrival at the Forest House.
By the time Eilan had assisted the High Priestess at half a dozen festivals, she had lost all enthusiasm for becoming the Oracle herself, but she knew that her desires would make no difference if she should be chosen by the Druids. She could not help knowing that the priests came to Lhiannon before each ritual, to help, they said, to prepare her. But once, when a half-closed door swung open, she saw the older woman slumped in trance as Ardanos droned into her ear.
She watched with extra interest that night when the Goddess was called down upon Her Priestess, wincing as Lhiannon twitched and muttered, garbling some answers while others came clear. It was like watching a horse fighting a tight rein, as if something within the Priestess struggled against the power that flowed through her.
They have bound her, she realized in horror as she sat by Lhiannon's beside that night when all was done. They set spells upon her so that she could say only those words that accorded with their will!
Perhaps that was why, despite the ritual, there were times when the Goddess did not come, and Lhiannon's answers arose from her own wisdom, or perhaps the words that the priests had taught her. It seemed to Eilan that those times were the most exhausting of all. And even when the trance was a true one, the Oracle could answer only those questions that were put to her; as time passed, Eilan began to suspect that the Druids controlled who was allowed to question her as well. A few genuine Oracles were indeed delivered; but only, Eilan discovered, in matters of small moment. And these, if they came from the Goddess, generally made little difference either to those who asked or those who heard.
Eilan's first reaction had been to protest, but to whom? Caillean was away, carrying a message from Lhiannon to the new queen of one of the tribes, and Miellyn too concerned about the coming child for Eilan to trouble her. By the time there was anyone she could have told, it had come to her that Caillean and Dieda, at least, must know already. It would explain some of their arguments, and the somewhat exasperated tenderness with which Caillean cared for Lhiannon.
And the High Priestess, above all, must understand what was being done to her. Lhiannon had chosen to come to the Forest House, and to remain in the power of the priesthood. If they were making her their mouthpiece, surely it was with her own consent and will.
It was in this state that matters stood when Eilan accompanied Lhiannon to the Beltane festival almost three years after she had been given to the temple.
Eleven
Gaius had not been in the Ordovici lands for almost two years when the third Beltane since he lost Eilan arrived. His father had not spoken again of the proposed marriage with the daughter of Licinius, but had seconded him to the Governor's staff. He had spent the past two seasons marching across Alba with Agricola, engaged in what they fondly hoped was a pacification of the lowland tribes. Raiders like those who had killed Bendeigid's family were bad enough but it was the still free tribes of the North who threatened the Empire's hold on Britannia. For a serving officer of the Roman army, grief was an indulgence. Gaius did his duty, and if the sight of some girl's bright hair and grave eyes set his old wounds to aching he took care not to weep where anyone could see.
He succeeded so well that when the campaign in Caledonia came to a temporary halt he was rewarded by being sent to escort a par
ty of wounded men back to the Legion's permanent quarters in Deva while the remainder of the Twentieth labored on a new fortress in the Caledonian highlands. So it was that he found himself in the South again, trotting down the road to the Hill of the Maidens with a centurion at his side and a detachment of regulars tramping along behind.
"We need a man we can trust to keep an eye on the festival, and you're the only one available just now who can speak the language well enough to pass. You'll have to face it sometime, lad," his father had told him when he protested. "Best get it over with." But not until Gaius saw the bare crown of the hillfort rising from the sea of forest and heard the lowing of the assembled cattle did he realize just how hard it would be. He reined in, staring, and the centurion barked an order to halt the men.
"Looks peaceful enough," said the centurion. "Wherever you go, market fairs are pretty much the same. They can get ugly, though, when you mix religion in." The soldier laughed. Gaius had already found that the man was a garrulous soul who required a minimum of response from his audience. "I spent my first three years with the Legions in Egypt. A god for every day of the week, they had, and each one with his own festival. Had some pretty messy riots sometimes when two processions collided in the center of town."
The Forest House Page 18
