The Forest House (8 page)

But by then, the same power was filling her own heart.

"The flowers spring up in Thy footsteps; the earth grows green where Thou dost pass . . ." As she had so many times before, she allowed the rhythm of the rite to carry her to a place where there was only the Lady's harmony.

On the morning of the Beltane festival, Eilan woke before dawn in the women's house where she slept with her sisters. Eilan's bed, a wooden frame strung with rawhide and covered with skins and fine woolen blankets, was built up against the sloping thatched roof, so close that she could reach up and touch it.

Over the years she had widened a crack in the mud plastering to a chink through which she could peer.

Outside, the light of an early summer dawn was just beginning to break.

With a sigh she lay back again, trying to remember her dreams. There had been something about the festival, and then the scene had changed. There had been an eagle there, she knew, and she had been a swan, and then, it seemed to her, the eagle had become a swan as well, and they had both flown away.

Little Senara still slumbered; she slept closest to the wall for she was still small enough to fall out of bed.

Her sharp bent knees poked into Eilan's side. Across the room Mairi, who had temporarily moved back in with her sisters until they learned what had happened to Rhodri, slept with her child; and on the outside Dieda, her loose pale hair scattered across her face, and her shift undone so that Eilan could see about her neck the chain that held Cynric's ring.

Rheis and Bendeigid did not know yet that the two had plighted themselves to one another. The secrecy made Eilan uneasy. But they meant to announce it at this festival, and ask the family to begin the complex negotiations regarding dowry and settlements so that they could be wed. At least Cynric had no living kin, which would make it simpler.

The only other furniture in the room was a bench fixed against the wall and the oaken chest in which the girls kept their extra shifts and holiday garments. It had belonged to Rheis before she married, and she
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had always said that when Dieda was wed it would be a part of her dower. Eilan did not grudge her this, for another, equally fine one intended for Eilan was already taking shape at the hands of old Vab the joiner. And in due time there would be one for Senara. She had seen the oak planks rubbed until they shone, and the wooden pegs stained till they did not show.

The baby whimpered sleepily and then began to squall, and Mairi sat up with a sigh, her curly hair an aureole around her face. She got up to change his breech-clout, then came back and laid him across the bed. He gurgled and she patted him.

Eilan put her feet into clogs and said, "Listen; I hear Mother outside. I suppose we had better get up."

She pulled on her gown, and Dieda opened her eyes and said, "I'll be dressed in a minute."

Mairi laughed. "I'll help Rheis as soon as I've fed the babe. You and Eilan can stay here and make yourselves beautiful for the festival. If any of the young men have caught your fancy, you'd best be prepared to shine." She smiled kindly at her young kinswoman. Dieda, with two younger brothers at home, was not accustomed to being pampered, and they all connived to spoil her a little whenever she was here.

When Mairi and her child had gone, Dieda smiled and said sleepily, "Is it truly festival day? I thought that was tomorrow."

"It is today," teased Eilan, "when you and Cynric will plight your troth."

"Will Bendeigid approve, do you think?" Dieda asked. "He is" Cynric's foster father after all."

"Oh, if
your
father gives his consent, it does not much matter what mine thinks," observed Eilan shrewdly. "And if he did disapprove of the two of you being together, I suppose he would have said so before now. Besides, I dreamed last night about you and Cynric at the festival."

"Did you? Tell me!" Dieda sat up, wrapping the bedclothes around her, for the air was still cool.

"I don't remember much about it. But your father was happy. Are you sure you want to marry that brother of mine?"

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"I do, indeed," said Dieda with a small smile, and Eilan knew she would say no more.

Eilan said, "Maybe I should ask Cynric — he might have more to say!" and laughed.

"And maybe he would not," said Dieda. "He does not talk that much either. You do not want to marry him yourself, do you?"

Eilan shook her head emphatically. "He is my brother!" If she had to marry, surely the great hulking lout who used to put frogs in her bed and pull her hair was the last boy she would choose!

"That's not really so, you know," Dieda said.

"He is my foster brother, and that is like kin," Eilan corrected. "If Father wished us to marry, he would not have fostered him." She reached for a comb of carved horn and began to unbraid the glistening strands of her hair.

Dieda lay back with a sigh. I suppose Lhiannon will be at the festival. . ." she said after a time.

"Of course she will. The Forest House lies by the spring at the foot of the hillfort after all. Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. Now that I'm thinking about getting married it makes me shiver to imagine spending one's life that way," said Dieda.

"No one has asked it of you," said Eilan.

"Not in so many words," said Dieda. "But Father did ask me once if I had ever thought of giving myself to the gods."

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"He asked you that?" Eilan's eyes grew wide.

"I said I had not," said Dieda, "but for weeks after I had nightmares that we had quarreled and he had imprisoned me in a hollow tree. And I do love Cynric. Anyway, I could not bear to live my whole life within the Forest House - or confined in any other house whatever. Would you?"

"I do not know - Eilan said. "Perhaps if I were asked I would agree —" She remembered how the priestesses moved through the festival, so serene in their dark blue gowns. They were honored like queens. Wouldn't that be a better life than being at some man's beck and call? And the priestesses were taught all the hidden lore.

"And yet I saw you looking at the young stranger," Dieda teased; "the one Cynric rescued. I think you would make a worse priestess than I!"

"Maybe you are right," Eilan turned away so that the other girl would not see the color that was heating her brow. She was concerned about Gawen because she had spent so much time tending him, that was all. "I have never thought much about it. But now I remember," she said thoughtfully, "Lhiannon was also in my dream."

Four

Later that morning the family set out for the festival. It was a fair May day, with a freshness in the air from the rain the night before, but the wind had driven the last of the clouds eastward and overhead the sky was clear. On such a morning, all the world's colors seemed newly created to honor the day.

Gaius was still limping, but Cynric had taken the bandage from his ankle, saying it would do him good to walk on it. He walked carefully, breathing deeply of the cool air, doubly inebriating after so long spent
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lying down indoors. Two weeks ago it had seemed he would never walk under the open sky again. For the moment it was enough to be alive, watching the sunlight on the green leaves and the spring flowers and the bright clothing of the folk around him.

Eilan had put on a long loose gown woven in crossed squares of pale golds and browns and a color like budding leaves over an undertunic of pale green. Her hair lay in a shining cape across her shoulders, brighter than the gold of her brooches and bracelets. It seemed to him that in all that glowing world she was the fairest thing of all.

He paid little attention to their chatter about the festival. He had seen a few celebrations among his mother's people when he was a child, and he supposed this one would be much the same. He heard the noise of the festival before they got there, for the great Celtic festivals were generally combined with a market fair. The festivities had actually begun some days before, and would go on for some time after, but this - the eve of Beltane — was the focus of the festival. It was at dusk that the Priestess of the Oracle would appear.

The woods had blossomed with tents and bothies of woven branches, for the festival had attracted folk from many days' journey away. Most of the people here were Cornovii, but Gaius recognized the tribal tattooing of Dobunni and Ordovices and even some Deceangli from up near Deva. After two weeks in the house of Bendeigid, the British speech of his birth came easily to his tongue, and Deva and the Legion were beginning to seem dim and far away.

Around the base of the old hillfort were clustered stalls selling dishes and small wares, some looking as if they had been made by local peasantry, and some which could have been sold in Rome itself. Perhaps they were of Roman make, for there was a growing trade between Britain and Rome, and the Greek and Gaulish traders went everywhere. There were stalls of apples and sweets, markets where people were trading horses, and a hiring fair where you could find anything, so Cynric said, from a swineherd to a wet nurse.

But when Gaius reached the flattened top of the hill that lifted like an island above the sea of forest, his eyes widened. The fair occupied the grounds of a great cleared earthwork, too full of booths and folk for the perimeter to be visible. But at the far end of the main aisle rose a great earthen barrow, whose entrance was of stone. Cynric made a sign of reverence as they crossed the road.

Gaius asked, "Is that your temple, then?"

Cynric gave him a curious look, but said only, "It is the burial place of a great chief among our
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forefathers. Unless some of the older bards know who he was, his name is lost, and if there was ever a song about him I have forgotten it, or never learned."

Another, longer avenue led to a building like a small square tower surrounded by a thatched portico, and Gaius gave it a curious glance. Eilan whispered, "That is the shrine where they keep the holy things."

"It looks like a temple," he said in a low voice, and she stared at him.

"Surely you know that the gods cannot be worshiped in any house made with human hands, but only under the open sky?" She added after a moment, "On some of the western islands, where no trees grow, they hold the rites in forests of stone; but my father says that the secrets of the great ancient rings of stone here in the South were lost with the senior Druids who were killed when the Romans came."

A booth where they were selling bangles of Greek glass caught her eye and she stopped talking. Gaius sighed. Better not ask anymore questions, he thought, lest he betray himself further. There were some things they would certainly expect even a Silure tribesman to know.

There were stalls of brooms and mops, and pretty girls selling garlands — almost everyone wore a garland - flowers and a good many other things, some too alien for Gaius to recognize. The young people wandered among the booths, casually looking at their wares. Cynric inquired for a swineherd but said that they all demanded too much for their labor.

"The accursed Romans have taken so many men in their levies that we must hire men to tend our beasts and till our fields," he said. "But so many folk have been driven from their lands that we can sometimes find men who will come for shelter and food alone. I suppose if I were a farmer I would be glad of that.

But may the gods save me from tilling the land!"

At noon Rheis gathered her family together beneath a spreading oak tree at the base of the hill for some cold meat and bread. The old hillfort was the focus for many pathways. From here they could see a broad and well-tended way that ran westward, lined with stately oak trees. At its very end the thatched roofs of the Forest House and its outbuildings showed pale against the deep green of the Sacred Grove.

Cynric and Gaius had gone off to look at horses, and Rheis had drifted away to speak to an acquaintance. The girls were packing up the food, when Eilan froze and whispered, "Look, there is Lhiannon."

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The High Priestess, with a few of her attendants, was coming along the Sacred Way between the long line of trees. Her slight figure glimmered in the dappling of sunlight that sifted through the branches, and she moved with the gliding pace of a trained priestess, so that she did not seem quite like a human being at all as she drew near. Lhiannon stopped as if to wish them a joyous festival, and her eyes fell on the girls. "You are the kinswomen of Bendeigid," she said. Her gaze fixed on Dieda. "How old are you, my child?"

"Fifteen," whispered the girl.

"Are you yet married?" Lhiannon asked. Eilan felt her heart begin to thud heavily in her breast. This was the face of the High Priestess as she had seen it in her dream.

"I am not," Dieda said in a still voice. She was staring at the Priestess as if entranced by that clear gaze.

"Nor pledged in marriage?"

"Not. . .yet, although I have thought. . ." her voice faltered.

Tell her,thought Eilan.
You are pledged to Cynric! You have to tell her now!
But though her lips worked, Dieda stood frozen, like a young hare when the falcon's shadow falls.

Lhiannon unfastened the heavy blue cloak that hung from her shoulders. "Then I claim you for the Goddess; henceforth you shall serve Her whom I serve and no other . . ." The cloak opened like a dark wing as the priestess swung it round, and light flared as the branches moved in a sudden wind.

Eilan blinked. Surely it was only sunlight - but in the dazzle, for a moment she thought that the opening of the cloak had revealed a radiant figure. She closed her eyes, but imprinted upon her inner sight she saw still a Face with a mother's tender smile and a bird of prey's fierce eyes, and it seemed to her that it was she, not Dieda, who was fixed by that gaze. But Lhiannon had not spoken to her, nor seemed to see her at all.

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"From henceforward, you shall dwell with us in the Forest House, my child. Come to us there - well, tomorrow will be time enough." Lhiannon's voice seemed to come from a great distance. "So be it."