"At least I, too, got to strike a blow for them. That was the first time in my life I was not ashamed of the Roman blood in my veins.” Cynric went on. "I think that Beltane when you guested with us was the last time we were all happy together. All who survived are scattered now.”
"I was at the Hill of the Maidens this last Beltane,” Gaius said carefully. "I saw Dieda, and Eilan your foster sister, there. I was glad to know she had survived.”
"Aye,” Cynric said shortly. "She is in the Forest House, a priestess of the Great Goddess. As for Dieda, she is Eilan’s kin, but none to me. Nor likely to be, if she stays there!”
"I have a friend in the Legions—” Gaius said then.
Cynric laughed. "Well, I am not surprised at that—”
Gaius shook his head. "His sister married a Briton, and was cast off by her kin. They had a daughter, but the sister’s dead now, and they say her husband is on the run. My friend wants to find the little girl.”
"On the run…” Cynric said thoughtfully. "Why are you asking me?”
"Because they say he was one of those who fly at midnight—”
"Many birds fly at midnight.” Cynric gazed into his wine. "What was the man’s name?”
"Hadron,” said Gaius. "His wife was called Valeria.”
"I know little of birds,” said Cynric, "but I can ask around.”
"Could they have taken the child to the Forest House? Would your kinswomen know?”
"I could ask,” answered Cynric.
I would rather ask her myself, thought Gaius, but he did not know how to say so. And how did he know that Eilan even wanted to see him again? If she was happy in the Forest House, would he be only breaking her peace to try and see her there? He had done his duty to Valerius. Should he make some excuse and disappear again?
He realized that he had been silent too long when Cynric refilled his cup from the jug of wine and shoved it back at him.
"There’s more to this than a lost child,” said the Briton. "What did you really want to say?”
"I must see Eilan again,” Gaius burst out suddenly. "I swear I mean her no harm. I only want to know she is happy there.”
For a moment Cynric stared at him, then threw back his head with a roar of laughter that turned heads all over the room. "You’re in love!” he laughed again. "I should have recognized the symptoms. Isn’t my own girl locked away behind those very walls?”
"But you’re a kinsman,” said Gaius seriously. "They’ll let you talk to her. Can you arrange something for me?”
"Why not?” Cynric grinned. "I’ve never seen any reason to keep the priestesses all penned up. That’s like something you Romans would do. Dieda won’t see or speak to me since she went in there, but my foster sister is not a prisoner. I will see what I can arrange for you.” He drained his wine cup. "Be at the edge of the path leading to the Forest House three days from now, an hour after noon.”
As Eilan waited in the woods near the Sacred Grove in the unusual brightness of the early summer sunlight, she was surprised to find that she was trembling. At first, when Cynric had spoken to her of a meeting with Gaius, it had seemed like the answer to an unusually fervent prayer. But she soon realized that the most dangerous thing in the world is an answered prayer. Her chances of keeping the meeting a secret were slim indeed. And no one would believe her if they were discovered.
In the end she had gone to Caillean for advice.
"There is nothing that you can do, since you have bidden him here, but to meet him as has been arranged,” Caillean had replied. "But I am going to be within earshot every moment; so that if I am later asked I can swear that the two of you have exchanged no word that could not be spoken in the presence of the parents of either of you. Do you accept that?”
Eilan had bowed her head, then turned to go. In truth, she was even a little relieved. If she must speak to him in the presence of the priestess, there would then be no question of his asking of her anything…dangerous.
"Wait,” Caillean had said. "Why did you bring this to me? Surely you could not imagine that I would approve!”
"I am doing nothing that betrays my vows.” Eilan faced the other woman directly. "But I know how idle tongues can embroider a tale. I believe that you would advise me as you thought right, whatever you might feel!” And then she had turned once more, and gone. But she remembered with some satisfaction the flush of color that had stained the other woman’s cheeks.
And so she waited, knowing that with the implacable watcher she had nothing to fear. If she had earlier been asked whether she was afraid of Gaius she would have unhesitatingly answered no; but as the shadows shortened, she became frightened, then terrified.
"Oh, Caillean.” She turned to the other woman, who sat upon a stone at the edge of the clearing, working on a piece of embroidery. "What am I going to say to him?”
"Why should you ask me? I am hardly the person to advise a maiden on her dealings with a man,” Caillean replied with a sardonic smile.
Eilan sighed. As time passed she realized that it would take a while for him to come all the way from Deva. But as she waited, she found her hand stealing into Caillean’s.
Was she meddling in an affair which was, after all, none of her concern? No, she told herself firmly. It was clearly her duty to find out all she could about the child’s surviving relatives. Thus fortified, she waited; and her heart began to pound when at last she saw his shadow upon the path.
It was the first time she had seen Gaius in the uniform and helmet of the Roman Legion; she was struck by how well it became him. He seemed taller under the crimson crested helmet, and the color set off his dark eyes. He came into the clearing and stopped short. If he was surprised to see two women instead of one, it showed only in the momentary flicker of his eyes. Saluting them, he lifted the helmet from his head and tucked it under one arm.
Eilan found herself staring. She had never before had more than a momentary look at a Roman officer in full uniform; and it emphasized the differences between them. And yet, she thought, by their laws we are all Romans. It was like a revelation to her.
He looked at her and smiled, and suddenly all the things she had meant to say to him vanished from her mind.
Gaius shifted his gaze from Eilan to the older priestess, wondering what on earth he should say. He had never once envisioned that their meeting would be attended by a third party. He had not chanced angering his father and risking the wrath of hers, to exchange a few guarded remarks in the presence of a veritable dragon.
But as he met Caillean’s amused glance his anger cooled. If Eilan was a Vestal Virgin or the nearest thing to one to be found within the British Isles, he could hardly blame her for wanting a witness who could attest to her unbroken vows. He wondered how he could make it clear, she was as sacrosanct to him as a Virgin in the temple of Vesta. He remembered how overwhelmed he had been by her trust when she sat beside him at the Beltane fire, how touched by her innocence.
Caillean, of course, was another matter; he could tell at once that the older woman would not have trusted him—or both of them—out of her sight, and for Eilan’s sake he was indignant. But he guessed that the priestess had been brought up on tales of Roman outrages. To the women of the Forest House the very fact that he was a Roman and a man was enough.
And the truth was that if Caillean had not been there, he might have kissed Eilan; she looked very enticing in the pale linen dress that set off the gold of her hair. He thought the garb must be some kind of standard dress among the priestesses, for Caillean was wearing the same kind of draperies, though hers were dark blue and unbecoming. Both had little curved daggers hanging from their girdles.
After a moment Eilan began to tell him about the girl in the house of the priestesses, not very coherently, but he knew at once that this must be the child of Valerius’s sister. "But this is amazing,” he exclaimed. "I think this must be the same girl I came here to speak about to you, the niece of my father’s secretary. How old is she?”
/> "The Goddess must be guiding us indeed,” said Eilan. "I do not think she has passed her tenth year.”
"Oh, well, she is not old enough to be marriageable,” he said, for Roman law did not permit the marriage of a girl under twelve. He added lightly, "That’s good; otherwise Valerius would probably feel in honor bound to make some arrangement. Now he’ll just have to marry someone else to have a home for her.”
"That is not necessary,” said Eilan. "The girl is well and happy where she is, and you may tell him so.”
Gaius frowned; he knew that for Valerius, who came of a good old family, it would not be considered suitable that a kinswoman should live away from the family’s protection. But Valerius had no other family to take care of the girl now, and perhaps Eilan’s insistence that she would personally watch over the child’s health and safety would be enough for him.
After all, in Rome, it was the greatest possible honor for a little girl to be taken into the temple of Vesta. For as long as she retained her ritual position she was treated like a queen, or an empress at least. Somehow he would make Valerius understand.
He realized that he was still making ineffectual remarks about the little girl, whom he had not even seen, when he saw Caillean glaring at him. They had already said everything they could legitimately say to one another, and were beginning to repeat themselves. It was time to say goodbye.
He paused, eyeing Eilan wistfully. He supposed he would never have another opportunity to speak with her in even this much privacy. He would have liked to bid her a proper goodbye, but he could certainly not do that under Caillean’s eyes. And he should probably not expose himself to that kind of temptation anyhow. But Eilan was still looking at him, a question in her eyes.
"Eilan—” he stammered, for Caillean was watching as well. "You know what I would say to you…” He held out his hand, not daring to touch her, and then, as Caillean coughed, turned it to a formal salute of farewell. But he read Eilan’s answer in her smile.
When he had withdrawn, Eilan ran to Caillean.
"So that is the Roman who has had you daydreaming to the point where you can hardly be trusted to stuff a mattress with bracken. I cannot understand it; he does not seem in any way special to me.”
"Well, I did not suppose that you would particularly like him,” Eilan protested, "but he is well favored, is he not?”
"I cannot see that he is any more so than any other Roman,” Caillean remarked. "Or for that matter any other man. To me your foster brother Cynric is much better looking. He has a gentler face and does not appear to think the world must revolve about his comings and goings.”
Eilan supposed there was no accounting for taste; she herself did not think Cynric was particularly attractive, but Dieda certainly did. But Gaius was something different; to her he did not seem typically Roman, not in any way. Nor did Gaius himself appear to think of his Roman lineage as anything very special. Certainly he could not if he was for a time thinking of abandoning it for marriage with me, she told herself then.
She had never for an instant considered marrying anyone else; and as for men, the world was full of them. She hardly realized how much thinking of Gaius had come between her old life and what now seemed natural to her.
"Eilan, you are daydreaming again,” Caillean remarked sharply. "Go and find Senara and tell her what you have discovered; and then go to Latis for your lesson. If you can manage to pay attention, some day you may be as skilled in the lore of herbs as Miellyn.”
Thus admonished, Eilan went about her duties; but she could not resist going obsessively over and over every word she had said to Gaius and every word he had said to her. She could not believe she would never see or speak with him again; he seemed too much a part of her life even after their formal goodbye.
That night when she went in her turn to wait upon Lhiannon, the older woman looked at her with dismay.
"What is this I have heard? That you have been out of the temple to meet with a man? This is not the behavior expected of a priestess of the Forest House. I am disappointed in you,” she chided.
Eilan colored angrily. But this was why she had asked Caillean to witness their meeting, after all. "I said not one word to him that could not have been spoken in the presence of all of you.”
Lhiannon sighed. "I did not say you did, but the fact of the matter is that it was not spoken in the presence of all of us, and there will be talk. The Goddess be thanked, Caillean was there; but she should have known that we cannot afford to have even the suspicion of scandal, so it is she and not you who will be punished for it. But I beseech you before you do anything of this kind again, think that you have brought punishment down on the head of another. You are young, Eilan, and the young are always thoughtless.”
"Punished? But that is not fair! What will you do to her?” Eilan asked apprehensively.
"I will not beat her, if that is what you are thinking,” Lhiannon said smiling. "Even when she was a small child, I never beat her; perhaps I should have done. As for her punishment, that is for her to tell if she wishes.”
"But, Mother,” Eilan protested, "it was you who told me to find out if the child had any family.”
"I did not say that you should inquire among the Romans,” Lhiannon said irritably. Eilan wondered how in the world she could have been expected to find out about the relatives of a Roman child in any other way.
Later, among the priestesses, Eilan found an opportunity to speak to Caillean. "Lhiannon told me she had to punish you. Can you forgive me? Will it be too bad? She said she would not beat you.”
"She will not,” Caillean said. "There is a house in the forest where she will probably send me to spend time meditating on my sins while I clear away the brushwood and weeds with which it is surrounded and put the place in order. It’s not much of a punishment; Lhiannon probably does not realize that it is actually a luxury to me to be alone with my music and my thoughts. So you must not think I am being ill treated.”
"Alone in the forest? But won’t you be frightened?”
"What should frighten me? Bears? Wolves? Wandering men? The last bears in this part of the world were trapped over thirty years ago. How long is it since you have seen so much as a wolfskin rug in the market? And as for men, you have good cause to know that I could frighten away any man alive. No, I am not afraid.”
"I should be terrified,” Eilan said somberly.
"I am sure of it; but I am not afraid of my own company. And I can think of my music as much as I wish, without a lesson or a duty interfering. So I shall be quite content,” Caillean assured her. "There is nothing in this punishment—if she will call it so—to trouble me.”
Eilan said no more, and she knew that at least when it came to waiting upon Lhiannon, she and Dieda would willingly share Caillean’s duties between them. Well, that was no hardship; she loved Lhiannon in spite of her flaws, and she knew that her kinswoman loved her too. She would miss Caillean, though.
Now it occurred to her that if Lhiannon had been a different type of person she herself might have been beaten or severely punished. Whatever Caillean made of this penalty, it was Eilan who had brought it upon the older woman. For that she felt guilty, but not enough to regret her meeting with Gaius. She only wished she had been able to say half of what she wanted to, though what that was she could not have named.
When Caillean departed from the Forest House, Eilan realized that the older woman was really not much of a favorite with the other women there. Only Miellyn and Eilidh seemed to be truly her friends—and of course Lhiannon.
The weather changed as summer moved towards autumn. As the equinox approached there was rain, and late one evening, while the women in the House of Maidens were seated around the fire, Eilan found herself thinking of Caillean in her exile. Was the roof of the hut leaky? How did she react to the solitude and the silence of the forest?
The women had been inventing riddles, and at last, tired of this pastime, they asked Dieda to sing or to tell them a story.
r /> Dieda acquiesced. "What would you like me to tell you?”
"Tell us a tale of the Otherworld,” said Miellyn. "Tell us how Bran, son of Febal, voyaged to the western land. All the bards learn that one.”
And so Dieda half told, half chanted, the tale of Bran and his encounter with the sea god Manannan, Lord of Illusion, who turned the sea into a flowering grove of trees, the fish into birds flying in the air, the waves into flowering bushes, and the sea creatures into sheep; so it seemed as if they sailed through a flowering grove. And when Manannan fell out of the boat, the waves rushed in, so that the sea god was cast upon the shore and all the other men drowned.
When she had finished they called for another tale, like little children sitting spellbound.
"Tell the story of the King and the Three Hags,” suggested one of the women, and Dieda began as all tales were begun.
"A long time ago, times were better than now, and there were more gates between the Otherworld and this, and if I had been there, I should not now be here…well then, in a longer time ago than the oldest grandfather can tell, in a house on the borders of the Underworld, there lived a king and his queen…
"And it was on the eve of Samaine, when the gates between the worlds are open, and at the time between times, between the midnight of one year and the dawn of the next, there came to the door three hags. The first had a snout like a pig, and her lower lip hung down to her knees and concealed her garment; the second had lips both on one side of her head and a beard which hung down concealing her breasts; and the third was a hideous creature with one arm and one leg. Under her arm she carried a pig which was so much better looking than she was that it was as if the pig were a princess.”
By this time all the women were laughing. Dieda herself smiled a little and went on. "The three hags came in and took three seats by the fire so that there were no seats by the fire for the King and his Queen, who were forced to take seats by the door.