The Forest House (34 page)

Would they now hasten her into a marriage of convenience with someone more "suitable" as they were trying to do with him? He suddenly pictured her, beaten or bullied into compliance, tearful, wretched, perhaps weeping. She was, after all, of noble birth as the Britons counted such things, and an alliance with her family could be considered advantageous - as this marriage with Julia would be politically advantageous for his father - and, he supposed, for him.

But I am sure that if they try she will refuse it,he thought then.
She has more integrity than I.
Ecstatic as his union with Eilan had been, there had been moments when she had almost frightened him. Or perhaps it was his own response that had made him afraid.

Julia smiled with an appearance of timidity. It was, Gaius thought, assumed for her father's benefit; the last hour had taught him that anything less timid than Julia — except maybe one of Hannibal's war elephants — would be hard to imagine. But maybe her father still thought of her as a shy child; fathers were the last to know what their children were really like.

But that made him think of Eilan again; her father had trusted him, and look what had happened; he could not fault Julia's father for being more careful.

The duties of an officer attached to the Procurator's staff turned out to include a number of tasks which would probably have been easy for Valerius, but which for Gaius, whose tutor had been pensioned off several years ago, were as stressful to the mind as his first weeks in the army had been for his body.

Fortunately these tasks were often interrupted by assignment to escort duty for visiting dignitaries.

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He was not much used to cities, but he soon learned to find his way around well enough. Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the Governor, had instituted a program of building of which Londinium had been the first beneficiary. The Britons had been a pastoral people, whereas Roman life centered around the city, with its shops and baths, its games and theaters. A bridge linked Londinium with the south and other roads stretched away to the north and westward. Along these arteries came trade from every corner of the province, and the ships that anchored at the wharves carried goods from all over the Empire.

Shepherding the strangers gave him an excuse to explore, and expose him to visitors of high station.

When Gaius got up the nerve to ask him, Licinius said that he had planned it that way.

"For of course, if this marriage is successful —" he said, and broke off without finishing the sentence.

"You know, I have no sons; no child at all but Julia, and if things went as they should, she should be allowed to succeed me, and perhaps even attain to senator. But of course a woman, no matter how capable, can only bestow her rank on her husband. That is why it pleases me so much that she should marry the son of my oldest friend."

Only then did Gaius really understand Macellius's plan. Married to Julia, Gaius could legitimately aspire to the position for which his father's injudicious marriage had disqualified him. He would not have been human - nor Macellius's son - if he had been indifferent to the possibilities. Living in Londinium had already altered his perspective, and he was beginning to understand what he would have been giving up if he had run away with Eilan. Had she been ill used? He could only hope she knew that nothing on earth -

short of his father's will or the threat to Eilan herself -could have made him abandon her.

He had not realized that Julia was aware of his troubles until she brought up the subject herself.

"Father told me," she said after the evening meal when they were sitting on the terrace together watching the late summer sunset gild the basilica's dome, "that you were sent here because you had formed some sort of alliance with a native woman, the daughter of a proscribed man. Tell me something about her.

How old was she?"

Gaius felt his face flame and coughed to cover his confusion. It had never occurred to him that her father would have told her; but perhaps it was just as well to get things clear between them.

"A few years older than you are, I think." In truth, he supposed that Julia must now be just the age Eilan had been when he first met her. Though otherwise they were utterly different, Julia had the quality of innocence he had first loved in Eilan.

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The Procurator had kept him busy, and so had local society. It was a heady experience for a young man of mixed blood. He had told his father once that he was not ambitious, but that was before he had realized what rewards wealth, and the right connections, could bring.

Julia smiled at him kindly. "Did you care very much about being married to her?"

"I thought I did. I was in love. Of course I had not met you then," he said quickly, wondering what love could possibly mean to Julia.

She looked at him, long and steadily. "I think you should see her again before we are married," she said,

"just to be certain that you are not going to pine for her once you are married to me."

"I have every intention of being a good husband —" he began, but Julia either misunderstood or chose to pretend to. Her eyes were too dark; he could not read them. Eilan's eyes had been clear as a forest pool.

"Because," she said straightforwardly, "I do not want a man who would rather be married to someone else. I really think you should see her again, and find out what you want your life to be. Then, when you come back, I'll know that marriage with me is really what you want to do."

She sounded like her father, he thought grimly, when he was negotiating a contract; she sounded as if she thought marriage was a career. But then, brought up in the capital as she had been, that was probably exactly what she expected it to be! And what other

career could there be for a Roman woman? What could she know of the fire that pulsed in the blood when the Beltane drums began, or the longing that ate at the heart like the music of the pipes the shepherds played on the hills?

In any case, his father had made it impossible for him to see Eilan; no doubt even Julia would be horrified if she heard that his beloved was the local equivalent of a Vestal Virgin. But Julia was already making plans, and once again Gaius felt as if he was in the path of a cavalry charge.

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"Father is going to send you north with despatches for Agricola —"

Gaius raised one eyebrow, for he had heard nothing of this, but it did not really surprise him. Julia was the darling of every clerk in the
tabularium,
and when a change in orders was contemplated, they were always the first to know.
And the last one to know is always the man most concerned!
he thought.

"On your way you can make time to see this girl. When you come back you will be quite, quite sure that you would rather be married to me."

Gaius suppressed a smile, for she did not know as much as she thought if she imagined he would have much time for side trips on government service. But perhaps he could manage something; already his blood beat faster in his veins at the thought of seeing Eilan again.

Thanks be to Venus that Julia could not know what he was thinking, though there were times when he credited her with the powers of a Sibyl, or maybe all women had this kind of power. But Julia was chattering about her wedding veil, which was to be made of a fabulous material to be brought in by caravan from halfway around the world.

It would be rather a relief, he thought, even if he must travel to the wilds of Caledonia, to get back to the regular army again.

Seventeen

As the summer ripened towards Lughnasad it did not seem to Eilan that Lhiannon grew any better.

Sometimes the old woman's heart pained her, and always she was tired. Ardanos came daily, and at first he and the High Priestess would talk, but as the days passed, and her attention drew increasingly inward, he simply sat by her bedside in silence, and when he spoke it was with Caillean, or to himself. After these sessions, Caillean would be silent and pensive, but she had always been one for keeping her own
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counsel.

Eilan found it strange that as her own body was becoming a vessel of life, Lhiannon should be undergoing a parallel transformation, preparing to release her spirit - but in what world she would be reborn no one could say. Joy at the new life within her muted Eilan's own sorrow. But in those days the Forest House grew very silent, and all the women went about their tasks with mingled excitement and dread. For no one had yet dared to ask who Lhiannon's successor was to be.

It was fortunate that everyone was too distracted by Lhiannon's illness to take much notice of anyone else, but what would Eilan do when her belly could no longer be concealed by her loose robes?

Not for a moment was Eilan allowed to forget that as far as Ardanos was concerned she was under sentence of death; she

fancied that even Dieda regarded her with barely concealed contempt.

Miellyn was still mourning the loss of her own child and could offer no comfort. Only Caillean never changed toward her - but then Caillean had always been a law unto herself; the one thing that sustained Eilan when she grew most afraid was her awareness of the older woman's love.

She did not know when, if ever, she would see Gaius again; but remembering the kingly spirit she had glimpsed when they lay together, she felt certain they would meet again. She did not want to believe - as the Arch-Druid said - that he had hastily been married off to someone else. Even among the Romans the solemnizing of a marriage must demand more formality and time than that.

A month passed, and Caillean presided over the full moon rituals. Now it was obvious, nurse and care for her as they might, that Lhiannon was dying. Her feet swelled so that she could no longer even stagger to the privy. Caillean nursed her tenderly; no mother ever had a more devoted daughter. But still the fluid filled her body.

Caillean fed her herb brews and spoke of dropsy, and once they went far afield to find the purple flowers of the foxglove, which Caillean said were sovereign for an ailing heart. Eilan cautiously tasted the brew Caillean made of them, and found it bitter as sorrow.

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But in spite of all their care, day by day Lhiannon grew weaker and more swollen and pale.

"Caillean—"

For a moment she doubted she had heard it; the call was like a breath drawn by the wind. Then the bed creaked. Wearily, Caillean turned. Lhiannon's eyes were open. Caillean rubbed the sleep from her own and made herself smile. Illness had consumed the flesh from the older woman's face so that the good bones showed with a terrible clarity.
It is almost over.
The unwelcome knowledge came to her.
Soon,
only the essentials will remain.

"Are you thirsty? Here's cool water, or I can stir up the fire and give you some tea . . ."

"Something hot . . .would ease me . . ." Lhiannon drew breath. "You are too good to me, Caillean."

Caillean shook her head. When she was ten years old and halfway to death with the fever, Lhiannon had nursed her back again, more than her mother or father would have done. Her feelings for the older woman went beyond love or hatred. How could you put that into words? If Lhiannon could not sense them in the taste of an infusion or the touch of a cool cloth on her brow, she would never know.

"I suppose there are those who think you are doing this so that I will make you my heir . . .Women cooped up together can be very petty, and it is true, you are a greater priestess than all of them put together . . .but you know better, do you not?"

"I know." Caillean managed a smile. "I am destined to live for ever in the shadows, but I will support whoever rules. Please the Goddess, it will not be for yet a while."

And who knows how long I will live after you?she thought then. Her strange bleeding had ceased at last, but fatigue dragged at her limbs as if they had been cast of lead from the Mendip mines.

"Perhaps . . .Do not be so sure you know everything, my child. Despite what people think, my Sight comes not always at the Druids' bidding. And I have
seen
you with the ornaments of a High Priestess and a mist that is not of this world blowing around you. A life path may have strange twists and turnings, and
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we do not always end up where we intend to go . . ."

Boiling water hissed in the little cauldron, and Caillean spooned • in the mixture of yarrow and chamomile and white willow, and set it to steep beside the flame.

"Goddess knows I have not done so!" Lhiannon burst out suddenly. "We had such dreams when we were young, Ardanos and I - but he grew greedy for power . . .and I had none!"

You could have stood against him,thought Caillean.
You were the Voice of the Goddess, and for
twenty years the people have lived by your words. And you don't even know what you have been
saying! If you had ever allowed yourself to know, you would have had to act, for then it would
have been real. . .

But she bit back the words, for Lhiannon had given more hope to the people unknowing than Caillean with all her conscious wisdom, and that outweighed all her failings, whatever cynics like Dieda might say.

With a little honey to take away the bitterness, the tea was ready. Caillean slid her arm around Lhiannon's fragile shoulders and held the spoon to her lips. The sick woman's head turned fretfully, and her cheeks glistened with tears. "I am tired, Caillean . . ." she whispered, "so very tired, and afraid . . ."

"There, there, my dear; you are surrounded by those who love you," she whispered. "Drink this now, it will give you ease." Lhiannon swallowed a little of the bittersweet brew, and sighed.

"I promised Ardanos I would choose my successor . . . to serve his plan. He is waiting . . ." She grimaced. "Like a crow watching a sick ewe. It was to be Eilan, but she . . .must be sent away soon.

Now he says I must choose Dieda, but I will not, and she would not, unless the Goddess —" a fit of coughing took her and Caillean hastily set the tea down, holding Lhiannon upright and patting her back until she was still.