The Forest House (16 page)

Dieda stifled a cry, then said quietly but clearly, as if she spoke to someone a long way off, "Cynric, you must come. This time it is not a Roman outrage but the people of the North who have burned your house and have killed your mother and sister. Return to the Ordovici lands. Your foster father is alive and has need of you.”

After a time the face disappeared, the water swirled darkly in the bowl, and Dieda stood up, clutching a little dizzily at the edge of the table. "He will come,” she said. "The keeper of the college of priestesses there will give him supplies. With good roads and good weather he should be here in a few days.”

Bendeigid said, "But what of the barbarians who burnt our house? If you are not too wearied, child, we must see them and know whence we go to punish them—”

"I will not,” said Dieda. Her hair was still hanging about her face. "Always you can bend me to your will, but let Caillean do this; it is her will that we work with the Romans in this, not mine. I will find it hard to forgive you.”

"My child—”

"Oh, I well know the necessity; but to use me to draw Cynric here, how could you?”

Caillean took the bowl and flung the water out through the door, letting in a welcome blast of fresh air. Yet in spite of the warmth of the summer night after a few moments Eilan began to feel cold. Caillean refilled the bowl and bent over it, motionless.

This time it seemed that the picture took longer to form, and the swirling clouds in the water lasted longer. Caillean's intent face grew paler, pale as death; then she spoke, softly still, and with a deathly weariness in her voice. "Behold, if you will.”

Eilan never knew what the others saw, but as the surface of the water cleared, before her eyes a small picture formed: the raiders as they had been when they burst into Mairi's house, arrested, frozen on the doorstep; men clad in multicolored and ragged fabric. Some bore swords, which she had not seen at the time, and some bore spears. The picture was so clear that she could see the raindrops glittering on their ragged blond or reddish beards and long streaming hair. The men crowded around the bowl, blocking the image that Eilan saw still in memory and knew she would be able to call up at will until the day she died.

In her memory she saw Caillean rush forward, scooping up handfuls of live coals and scattering them towards the strange men. She supposed that her father and grandfather must have seen something like this, for her father's face was clenched and drawn tight. "Red Rian,” he said between his teeth. "A curse on his sword and his shadow! And they are on the seashore still—”

"So be it, and I add my curse to yours for what that is worth,” Lhiannon said, stirring in her chair. "I declare to you that your people and the Romans together shall work to punish them.”

Bendeigid began to speak but Lhiannon silenced him with a gesture. "Enough; I have said it. Now go; let it be as Caillean has seen and I have declared. You can take Red Rian on the seashore.”

"Lady, how know you this?”

"Have you forgotten that I and mine can rule the winds when we choose?” Lhiannon said. "He will not find a breeze to bear him hence till you have caught up with him. Will all this content you?”

"For the sake of vengeance against those devils—if it must be so,” Bendeigid declared. "But I swore to ally even with Romans if they would help me to vengeance, though it goes against the grain—and we will need their help to drive these raiders and murderers forever from our shores!”

Dieda drew a long breath. "Will you await the coming of Cynric?”

"That will be at least partly for Macellius to say,” Bendeigid said grudgingly after a moment. Lhiannon's gaze fell on Eilan.

"But look you, our newest novice is quite perished with cold,” she said. "Where is your cloak, child?”

"I left it in the other hall with the priestesses,” Eilan murmured, unsuccessfully trying to control her shivering.

"You must go to bed soon. But the herbs have burned off now, come to the brazier and warm yourself, child. In a little, Caillean shall see to taking you to the novices' dormitory and give you nightclothes and the dress of a priestess.”

"Well said,” put in Ardanos, "and it is time we were going as well.”

Lhiannon drew Eilan to the fire, and gradually the girl's shivering subsided. But still she trembled within. Caillean put an arm around her.

"It will pass, child, I know…It can be very cold between the worlds; I felt you riding with me, though it was not intended. We shall have to guard against that another time.”

Bendeigid wrapped his cloak around him, but before he followed Ardanos out he paused before Eilan. "Daughter.” He coughed as Eilan looked up to meet his gaze. "I do not know when we will meet again. But I leave you in safety, and that is a comfort to me. May the Goddess bless you here.” He embraced her.

"I will pray to Her for your safety, Father,” she said softly, her throat tightening.

Bendeigid reached out and touched the tendrils that had escaped from the braid coiled upon her brow. "Your mother's hair grew just this way,” he whispered, and quickly, then, kissed her on the brow. She was blinking back tears when the door closed behind him.

"Well, that is done, and it is late indeed,” Caillean said with a touch of relief. "Eilan, is there anything you want to ask me?” She came and took the girl into a hearty embrace. "If you are warm now, come along and I will get you settled into the novices' dormitory.”

This time with Caillean at her side, Eilan crossed the windy courtyard which separated Lhiannon's dwelling from the hall where she had first been welcomed among the priestesses. Years later, when she knew every inch of these dwellings as well as the house in which she had been born, she was to remember her first sight of the Forest House and wonder that on this night it had seemed so enormous.

Eilidh and some of the other women were still gathered in the hall where Eilan had been first welcomed. They all looked at Eilan with curiosity, but a gesture from Caillean kept them still.

"We cannot ask you yet to take vows,” Caillean said to Eilan, "but for your first year among us you must make promises.” She stood upright and her face changed. Eilan watched her warily, wondering what was coming now.

"First of all—you have come among us of your free will? You have not been forced or threatened into seeking admission here?”

Eilan looked at her, astonished. "You know I have not been.”

"Hush—it is routine. You must answer in your own words.”

"Very well,” Eilan said. "I came here at my own wish.” This seemed very silly to her. She wondered if they had asked Dieda this, and what the other girl had answered.

"Do you promise that you will treat every woman in this dwelling as your sister, mother and daughter, as your own kin?”

"I will.” She now had no mother living, and if she took permanent vows, she would have no daughter either.

"Do you promise that you will obey every lawful command given you by an older priestess here, and that you will lie with no man—” Caillean stopped and made a face, amending, "saving only that you may lie with the Summer King, if his choice should fall on you.”

Eilan smiled. "I will obey, and it is no hardship to promise to give myself to no man.”
Since the one man I could have loved is forbidden to me.

Caillean nodded. "So be it,” she said. "In the name of the Goddess, who, though She has many names, is one, I accept you.”

She embraced Eilan, and, one by one, the other priestesses did the same. By the time they were done, Eilan found herself weeping, as if in some odd way she had regained the kindred she had lost.

The older priestess put Eilan's cloak over her shoulders and led her through a thatched passageway to a roundhouse with about a dozen beds—not box beds such as she was accustomed to, but narrow cots—set round the wall. Some of them were already occupied. One or two girls sat up, blinking sleepily, as Caillean pulled back the curtain of the bed nearest the door, then lay back again.

"A place has been made for you here,” whispered Caillean. She put Eilan into a coarse white shift which seemed a little too big. "Someone will wake you for the sunrise services in the grove. Do not expect to see me—I will be attending upon Lhiannon in preparation for the ceremonies of the full moon. Here is the dress you are to wear tomorrow.” She took from a nearby chest a bundle of clothing.

Eilan got into the narrow bed and Caillean tucked her under the thick blanket. Then she bent down to embrace her, and Eilan sat up to hug her back.

"Whatever you may think, remember that you are welcome among us,” Caillean said. "Even to Dieda; she is very unhappy now, but a day will come when she is glad you are here too.”

She kissed Eilan on the forehead. "Tomorrow one of the girls will help you to dress in the robes of a priestess; most likely Eilidh. And for a day or two she will go everywhere with you and show you what to do.”

Eilan lay back. The sheets were rough against her skin, and smelled of scented herbs. She asked, wanting to prolong the moment, "What scent is that on the sheet?”

"Lavender; we lay it among our linens when we wash them.”

Eilan told herself not to be surprised. The priestesses were women, if not exactly like any others she had known; of course they took thought to the plucking of herbs and the washing of linens like anyone else. She too would learn all these things.

Caillean said quietly, "Sleep now, and don't worry. It is well that you have come here. I think you have a very special destiny among us.”

Neither of them could have guessed how that prophecy was to be fulfilled.

"W
hy do we keep secret from the common folk the names of those herbs that are most powerful for healing?” Old Latis, the most senior of their herbalists, turned to the girls who were sitting beneath the oak tree, holding a stalk of foxglove bells in her hand.

"So they will have to come to us and respect the priestesses?” asked one of the younger girls.

"Their respect must be earned, child,” Latis said sternly. "Unlearned they may be, but they are not stupid. The reason for secrecy lies deeper—that which is most powerful for good is also powerful for evil, handled wrongly. Foxglove can stimulate an ailing heart, but give too much and it will gallop like a frightened horse until it breaks down. For the healer, judgment is all.”

Eilan frowned, for she had never thought of it quite that way. Later, looking back on her years in the Forest House, she wondered what she had expected. Peace, perhaps, or mystery, and even a little boredom. She had not expected that days spent studying with a group of other women would be simply so
interesting.

Her nights were harder, for in the first months she often dreamed of Gaius. At times she saw him riding with his men, or practicing with the sword. He swore sometimes as the blade bit into the man-shaped wooden post—
This for Senara, and this for Rheis. This, for Eilan!
When he finished his brow would be damp with sweat, but the moisture on his cheeks was tears.

Eilan would wake, then, weeping for his sorrow. She understood now how the grief of the living could torment the departed. She thought of sending a message to let him know she still lived, but there was no way to do it, and presently she began to realize that she was indeed dead to him, and the sooner he accepted that, the better for both of them.

In these early months, she was only one of a group of potential priestesses. She spent much of her time beginning to memorize the whole body of Druidic lore. Just as the gods might not be worshipped in a temple made with human hands, none of the divine lore might be entrusted to writing. Sometimes she thought this strange, for the human memory was itself so fragile. But she had seen her teachers perform amazing feats of memorization. Much of the old knowledge had been lost when Mona was destroyed, but much remained. Ardanos, for instance, could recite the whole of the Law from memory.

She was happy enough with her fellow priestesses. The ones she knew best were the two who had welcomed her to the House of Maidens that first night: Eilidh and Miellyn.

Eilidh was older than she looked and had been in the Forest House since early childhood. Miellyn was closer to her own age. Apart from these two, she best knew a woman named Celimon who was about forty, whose major task was to instruct the youngest priestesses and officiate at some of the less important rituals.

Her first task was to memorize every detail of those rites in which the maidens assisted, for if a mistake were made, a ceremony would have to be begun again. Two or three times Eilan had caused such an interruption. She felt foolish, but Miellyn assured her that they had all been through it.

Eilan was also instructed in the motions of moon and stars. She spent many night hours lying between Miellyn and Eilidh in a secluded part of the enclosure, watching the Great Wain swinging endlessly about the North Star, and the solemn march of the planets as they rose and fell and the Northern Lights flashed and circled in the summer sky. She learned that the earth went round the sun—of all the wonders, the hardest to believe. From all her early years in the Forest House these nights best captured her imagination; lying warmly cloaked on the damp grass with Caillean's voice floating above them in the darkness, intoning long stories of the stars.

She wished sometimes to learn to accompany the singing, but on one of the few occasions when she was allowed to spend some time with Caillean, she was told that women did not play the harp in the ceremonies.

"But why? Women can be bards now, can't they, like Dieda? And you play a harp, do you not?”

It was warm, and in the grove outside the walls one of the younger priests from the Druidic college across the fields was practicing. He was not very good at it, but it was very hard to play a harp so badly that listening would be painful. Even though the melody halted, each note was pure and clear.

"My instrument is a lyre, Lhiannon's first gift to me, and I have played it for years, so no one dares object. And talent like Dieda's cannot be denied.” Caillean's dark eyes flashed.

"It does not make sense. Why is it I cannot learn?” asked Eilan. However badly she might play, she could surely do better than that fellow outside, who did not seem to have noticed that as the day grew warmer his upper strings were going out of tune.

"Of course it does not make sense,” Caillean replied. "A great deal that the priests do makes no sense; and they know it. That is one reason why I will not be allowed to succeed Lhiannon. Ardanos is aware that I know it too.”

"Do you want to be High Priestess?” asked Eilan, her eyes rounding.

"Heaven forbid,” said Caillean fervently. "I would be running head-on against the will of the priesthood—which is like a stone wall—every day of my life. Leadership is another thing the men wish to keep for themselves. I think it has got worse since they encountered the Romans. They wish to keep the weapons, and the harps, and everything else save for the suffering of childbirth and the toil of the cooking pot and the loom. I dare say they would like to say women cannot serve the gods, but no one would be foolish enough to believe that. But why do you want to learn to play a harp?”

Eilan said, "Because I love music, and I cannot sing.”

"Your voice is soft but sweet, for I have heard it.”

"Grandfather says that next to Dieda, I croak like a frog,” Eilan said bitterly. "In our house it was always left to her to sing.”

"I think he is mistaken; but this time I will not argue, for even I must admit that he is one of our greatest bards. Dieda has a very beautiful voice, perhaps from him. Next to such a voice as your kinswoman's we are all frogs croaking, child, so do not grieve. You can learn the stories of the gods, even if you cannot sing them as well as she; I think you will have no trouble becoming a spell singer anyway. We cannot all have the finest voices, even among the bards.”

And, indeed, Eilan was taught to sing many of the spells she had to memorize, and a few of the simpler Words of Power were confided to her, even that first year.

One day when she was being instructed in spells by Caillean, the older woman asked, "Do you remember that night after Mairi's child was born, when I frightened away the raiders by throwing fire at them?”

"I will never forget it,” Eilan said.

"Remember I told you that you could learn to do it, if you had the proper teaching?”

Eilan nodded, her heart beginning to pound, whether with excitement or fear, she did not know.

"Well, I will teach you now. The important thing to remember is that the fire cannot harm you; you have seen me handle it, and so you know within yourself that it can be done.” She picked up the girl's slender white fingers in her own cool ones and breathed on the palm of Eilan's hand.

"Now,” she said, "the important thing is to trust yourself. Reach quickly into the fire, and pick up a handful of live coals; the fire can only harm you because you believe it is in the nature of fire to burn; once you know its true spiritual nature, you can handle it as you would a handful of dry leaves. Fire burns within you as it burns on the hearth. How can one flame harm another? Let the spark of life within you welcome fire!”

Eilan quailed, but it was true that she had seen Caillean do this trick; and she trusted the older woman completely. She reached towards the brazier of live coals; heat touched her face, but Caillean said firmly, "Do not hesitate—do it quickly!” And Eilan thrust her hand into the flames.

On her cheeks she could still feel heat, but to her astonishment, the coals felt like a handful of winter snow. Caillean, watching her wondering face, said, "Drop it, quickly now.” Eilan opened her fingers against a sudden blast of heat and the coals rolled on to the hearthstone. She stared at her hands in wonder.

"Did I really do that?”

"You did,” Caillean said. The coal had reached a cloth lying in the hearth, which began to smolder. A strong stink of burning cloth rose suddenly from the singed edges as Caillean picked it up and blew it out.

Eilan stared at her in astonishment. "How did you know that in another moment it was going to burn?”

Caillean said, "I could feel you beginning to think and wonder and doubt. Doubt is the enemy of magic. We are taught to do things like this to astonish the common people with wonders and marvels, or to guard ourselves in danger. But you must learn,” she cautioned, "that it is not right to do miracles for the sake of merely astonishing the once-born. Even to preserve yourself against danger, you must be wary of doing what may seem miracles. It may not have been altogether wise to use it that night in Mairi's house; but done is done. Now that you know it is possible, you shall learn when it is right to use such things, and when it is not.”

 

As the year's passage was marked by the festivals, the girls received not only the lore of the gods each festival honored but the meaning behind the tales, many of which, true in symbol, were not true in fact. They argued about the virginity of the goddess Arianrhod, and the fate of the bright son she so unwillingly bore; they analyzed the transformations of Gwion who tasted the brew in the cauldron of wisdom. They learned the secret lore of the Sacred King and the Lady of Sovereignty. And in the darkest days of winter, they contemplated the mysteries of the shadowy goddesses whose bloody faces and withered flesh were the embodiment of men's fears.

"But why do men fear old women?” Eilidh asked. "They do not feel that way about old men!”

"The old man becomes a sage, something for a man to aspire to,” Caillean told them. "They fear the hag because she is beyond their power. With the coming of her moonblood a girl becomes a woman. She needs a man to become a mother, and a mother needs a man to protect her children. But the old woman knows all the secrets of birth and death; she has rebirthed herself and needs nothing. So of course the man, who knows only the first change that brings him to manhood, is afraid.”

Lhiannon's name was sacred even when the younger girls giggled about their elders late at night in the Hall of Maidens, but Eilan could not help wondering if the High Priestess had gone through the rebirth Caillean had described. Old as she was, one could not imagine that any human grief or passion had ever touched her. She had lain with no man, borne no child; she drifted through the Forest House in a cloud of lavender scent and trailing draperies, her smile sweet and vague and distant as if she moved through her own private reality.

And yet Caillean loved her. Eilan could not allow herself to forget that the older priestess, with whom that night of Mairi's childbirth had given her so deep a bond, saw something in the High Priestess that she herself had not seen; but she would take it on faith that it was there.

When they began to teach the girls the disciplines that would give them access to the inner planes, Eilan applied herself with diligence. Such things—dreams and intuitions—had always come to her easily and without warning. Now she learned to bring the visions at will, and when it was necessary, to wall them away.

She learned the work of seeing visions in a bowl of water and the use of spells for far-seeing. One of the first things she saw through her scrying was the battle with the raiders who had destroyed her home.

 

"A blessing on the Lady of Vernemeton, if it is she who has sent this wind!” said Cynric, sniffing the mist that was blowing past him, heavy with the scent of the sea.

"She was as good as her word,” answered Bendeigid beside him. "Since the third day after they burned my hall this wind has blown. When the scattered bands came back to load their curraghs with their spoils they found the breeze dead against them.” He grinned mirthlessly. "We shall pin them between the strand and the sea!”

From near by came a hard-edged order, and the rhythmic tramp of hobnailed sandals came to a halt. Cynric grimaced, glad the wind had not carried the sound to the enemy. As well to go in with clarions shrilling than to let the raiders hear that ominous tread. The Britons were not nearly so orderly, but a great deal quieter.

He still found himself stiffening whenever the crest of a Roman helmet appeared through the mist. He had never expected to be fighting side by side with his enemy. But if, for the sake of a greater good, even Bendeigid could suspend his hatred, he supposed he could do the same.

Then Bendeigid laid a hand on his sleeve and Cynric halted, peering through the fringe of scrubby alders that stretched between them and the shore. He could smell woodsmoke and the rank odor of the privy trench—not very well tended. It was true, one could track vermin from the smell. He eased his shield down from his shoulder and got a better grip on his spear.

Cynric's heart was pounding oddly and his mouth was dry.
You longed for real battle, how can you be afraid?
he asked himself.
Would you have hidden behind Rheis's skirts if you had been there when they attacked the hall?
At the thought, his panic changed to fury.