Gaius and Cynric wandered together through the laughing throng until, near the fires, they encountered Eilan and Dieda.

 

"There you are!" exclaimed Cynric, hurrying forward. "Dieda, come dance with me."

 

All the color left Dieda's face and she held on to Eilan's hand.

 

"You have not heard?" asked Eilan brightly.

 

"Heard what, Sister?" Cynric began to frown.

 

"She has been chosen for the Forest House — by Lhiannon herself, this very afternoon!"

 

Cynric reached out to Dieda, and then, slowly, let his hands fall. "The Goddess has spoken?"

 

"How can you accept this?" Dieda's spirit seemed to come back to her. "You know I cannot marry you if I must take vows."

 

"And you know what vows already bind me," he said somberly. "I have been torn to pieces trying to decide. I love you but I cannot encumber myself with a wife and children for years, if ever. Perhaps the gods have chosen this way for us."

 

He drew a shaken breath and this time when he reached out she came to him. Dieda was a tall girl, but she seemed fragile, encircled by his strong arms.

 

"Listen, beloved, there is still a way," he said softly, taking her aside. "Three years you can give the Goddess — you need not pledge yourself lifelong. There is a battle college in the northern islands, and it is there that I am bound to go. But you are no battle-maiden; even if we were publicly pledged you could not come to me there. Perhaps it is as well you are to serve in the sanctuary for a time - you will be safer there. And if war should come . . ."

 

Dieda gave a little sob and buried her face against his shoulder. Gaius saw Cynric's big hands close on her arms.

 

"For three years other vows will bind us," he whispered, "but tonight is ours. Eilan, stay here with Gawen," he added, his voice muffled by Dieda's hair.

 

Eilan hesitated. "Mother said that Dieda and I were to stay together - it is Beltane —"

 

Dieda lifted her head, and her eyes were wild. "Have some pity! Rheis dares not cross your father - and my father —" She swallowed. "If they knew, they would not let us have even this little time!"

 

Her eyes wide and grave, Eilan nodded.

 

"Was I wrong to leave Eilan alone with the stranger?" Dieda whispered as Cynric led her away. "After all, he has lived among the Romans and may have their ways with women."

 

"He is a guest in our house; even if he were the son of the Procurator himself . . ."

 

"He can't be," Dieda giggled suddenly. "My father says that the Procurator has only a single daughter."

 

"— if he were, surely, he would respect the daughter of his host. And Eilan is only a child," Cynric replied.

 

"She and I were born in the same year," Dieda said. "You think her a child because she is your sister."

 

"What were you expecting?" Cynric asked irritably. "That I should tell you how much I love you before them both?"

 

"What is there left to say? Certainly not enough -" And she stopped, for his arms were around her, and he stooped to cut off her words with a kiss.

 

She clung to him for a moment, then broke uneasily away. "That doesn't help," she said. "And if we should be seen . . ."

 

He laughed mirthlessly. "They haven't put you under vows yet, have they? And I could always say it was Eilan I kissed." He put his hands under her elbows, lifting her on tiptoe, and bent to kiss her once more. After a moment all her resistance melted, and she let him mold her against him, kissing her again and again. When he broke away, his voice cracked, "How sane I sounded, a few moments ago! But I was wrong. I can't let you do this thing!"

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"I can't let you be walled up with all those women."

 

"What else can I do?" Now she had to be the sensible one. "Cynric, you're Druid-bred, you know the laws as well as I. Lhiannon has chosen. Where the hand of the Goddess has fallen . . ."

 

"You are right, I know it, but still . . ." He pulled her to him roughly, but his voice was very gentle as he said, "It's Beltane. Lie with me tonight, and your family will be glad enough to let us marry."

 

Her mouth was too young to be so bitter. "Perhaps you would like to explain nicely to my father how it happened? Or to yours."

 

He said, "Bendeigid is not my father."

 

"Yes, I know," she said. "Not that it makes any difference. But whether he is your father or not, Ardanos is mine, and he would strangle me and take a bullwhip to you. It is done, whether I like it or not. I am now a pledged virgin of the Sacred Grove and you are a Druid's son - well, at least you have been raised as one - and you are the son of a priestess in any case," she added quickly. "Cynric, you said it yourself. I can ask to be released at the end of three years. And then —"

 

"And then," he promised, "I will take you away to the other end of the earth if that is what I have to do."

 

"But you said you ought not to encumber yourself with wife or children," she protested, for the sake of hearing him say, "I don't care what I said; I want you."

 

Then he added, "Sit here beside me, then; let us watch the fires. It may be for the last time. Or for three years, which," he added despondently, "is almost the same thing."

 

The Arch-Druid of Britain stood at the gateway to the Forest House, watching the last light fade from the sky. From the hilltop he could hear the sounds of many voices, their clamor faded by distance to a music like a lake full of migrating birds, and beneath the other sounds, the deep heartbeat of the drums. Soon they would be lighting the Beltane fires.

 

Though time was passing, Ardanos felt curiously unwilling to move. That morning he had been in Deva, listening to the Roman Prefect. Tonight he would have to hear the complaints of the people the Romans ruled. There was no way he could satisfy all of them. The best he could hope for was to maintain an uneasy balance until - what, really, was he waiting for? — for all the old wounds to heal?

 

You will be dead before that happens, old man! he told himself. And Lhiannon too. He sighed, and saw that the first star had pricked through the darkening sky.

 

"The Lady is ready," said a soft voice behind him. Ardanos turned and saw one of the maidens, Miellyn, he thought, holding open the door.

 

Lhiannon's chamber was lit by hanging lamps of bronze. In their flickering light he saw her already slumped in her chair, Caillean standing watchfully by her side. For a moment the younger priestess met his gaze defiantly, then she stepped aside.

 

"She has taken the sacred herbs," Caillean said in a neutral tone.

 

Ardanos nodded. He was well aware of the girl's hostility, but as long as Caillean observed the forms of respect, he cared little what she thought of him. It was enough that she was devoted to Lhiannon.

 

Still frowning, Caillean left them alone. At such a time, when the High Priestess was already beneath the shadow of the Goddess she served, even her bodyguard might not be present here.

 

"Lhiannon," he said softly, and saw a tremor run through her thin frame. "Can you hear me?" There was a long silence.

 

"I always hear you . . ." the High Priestess said at last.

 

"You know that I would not be doing this, my dear," he said, almost to himself, "if there were any other way. But I have learned that there is more trouble over the levies. Bendeigid's son-in-law Rhodri went after the men they took from the Druid's clan and attacked the soldiers who were guarding them. There was a fight and Rhodri was captured.

 

"Macellius has managed to keep his identity a secret, but there is no way he can save him. The fool was taken in arms against Rome. If that word gets out there surely will be a rebellion. You must counsel peace, my dear." His voice dropped to a croon. "Let there be peace in the land — the Goddess wills it. Rome's time will come, but not yet, and not through war. The people must help one another and be patient - tell them, Lady. Let them pray for peace to the gods."

 

As he spoke, he saw her begin to sway, and knew that his words were reaching that deep place beyond conscious memory through which the words of the Oracle came. Despite what Caillean might believe, Ardanos had never doubted that something spoke through the High Priestess when she was thus tranced. But the Druids knew well that the ability of a spirit to speak through a human oracle was directly related to the content and sophistication of the mind that was its vehicle. An ignorant girl, no matter how sensitive, could only speak in simple, homely, terms. It was one reason why the Druid priestesses were so carefully selected and trained.

 

Some might have accused him of manipulation, but to the Arch-Druid it seemed that he was only adding his own particular knowledge of the country's needs to the resources at the Oracle's command. Though he did his best to impress certain information on the Oracle's memory, the Goddess, if it were truly She who was speaking, was surely at liberty to decide what to say.

 

"Peace and patience . . ." he repeated slowly. "Rome will fall when the gods will it, but not by our hands . . ."

 

 

 

Five

 

 

 

Gaius watched Dieda and Cynric disappear into the crowd, fighting a desire to call them back again. Eilan, grown suddenly shy, was staring at her feet. He wondered what he could say to her. Hearing the story of the priestesses of Mona had left him feeling oddly diffident, not at all the lord of the world, as a Roman ought to be. Thank the gods Cynric did not suspect his real identity. He had the uneasy feeling that old Ardanos had guessed, but if so, the Druid had kept his secret, which in its way was even more disturbing.

 

He cast about for some harmless topic of conversation, and said at last, "Tell me more about how your tribe keeps this festival. The Silure customs are somewhat different, and I do not wish to offend against your ways." A safe way, he thought, of covering the fact that he had only been to one native Beltane celebration, when he was six years old.

 

She colored. "Are they?" Now she was genuinely embarrassed. "It is a very ancient festival. Perhaps once all the tribes kept it the same way. Ardanos says our people brought it with them when they came to these islands. And he should know."

 

"Yes indeed," Gaius said. "He is so old - your grandfather - do you suppose he came over with those first ships from Gaul?" She giggled, and Gaius sighed with relief, feeling the tension between them ease.

 

"You have seen how they made the sacred flame," she said then. "Tonight when the Priestess comes out to bless the fires we will hail her as the Goddess. I do not know how it is with the southern tribes, but in the North, in the olden times, women were more free than now. Before the Romans came, the Queen sometimes ruled the tribe in her own right. Now it is the Priestess and the Druids. That is why Cartimandua could command the Brigantes, and the Iceni followed Boudicca."

 

Gaius stiffened. Among the Romans, Boudicca, the Killer Queen, was still a name to frighten children. In Londinium you could see the marks where the basilica had burned, and workmen digging foundations as the city grew sometimes found the bones of those who had tried to flee the bloodlust of the Iceni hordes. Eilan, oblivious, was still talking.

 

"Only in wartime did she appoint a duke of war to lead the armies; sometimes he was her brother, and sometimes her consort, but whatever he was, it gave him small power in the tribe. The Queen ruled of her own right, and whatever you may say, women know more of ruling, because each woman runs her own household. Isn't she better qualified to rule over a tribe than a man who can only do what his war chief says?"

 

"Over a tribe, perhaps," said Gaius. "Absurd it would be indeed, for a woman to command a Legion - or to rule a great empire like that of the Caesars."

 

"I cannot see why that should be so," Eilan said. "Surely a woman who can govern a large household is as fit to rule an empire as any man. Have there been no mighty queens among the Romans?"

 

Gaius grimaced, remembering the history that his Greek tutor had insisted he learn. "In the days of the Claudian Emperors," he said carefully, "I have heard there was an evil old woman named Livia, the mother of the deified Tiberius. She poisoned all her kinfolk. Perhaps that is why the Romans are not fond of female rulers."

 

Their walking had brought them to the far side of the fires, where the barrow mound sloped down to the festival ground.

 

"Gawen, do you think women are evil?" Eilan asked.

 

"You are not evil, certainly," he said, meeting her clear gaze. Her eyes were like a well of pure water into which he could sink for ever. A well of truth — at that moment it seemed to him monstrous that he should have to live this lie. Though it made no sense, he felt that he could trust her with his life; and if he entrusted her with his true identity, he might be doing just that.

 

There was a stir behind them. The shouts and singing grew closer. Gaius turned, and saw men bringing up images made out of wicker or straw. Some were human in shape, some, figures out of nightmare. One was even clad in a recognizable simulation of a legionary's helm.

 

The hair lifted on his neck. Earlier he had told Eilan he remembered nothing of the Beltane rites, but now, whether because of the drumming or the flickering light or the scent of sweet herbs they had cast on the fire, he suddenly knew that he had seen something like this before. He closed his eyes, seeing in memory tattooed dragons coiling up strong arms, hearing a young man's laughter. For a moment the drumming deafened him; blood filled his vision, and a grief so long suppressed that even now he could not give it a name.

 

His grip tightened on Eilan's arm.

 

"Silly!" Eilan laughed at his expression. "They are only effigies. Even in the old days it was only every seven years that the Summer King or his substitute was offered to renew the land."

 

"You are a Druid's daughter," he said, easing down upon the grass. "I suppose that you would know."

 

She smiled and sat down beside him at the edge of the circle. "I have not the lore they teach them in the Forest House, but I have heard that tale. They say that the Chosen One would be treated like a king for the year before his doom. It was a great honor for his family. His every wish was fulfilled, he had the best of food and wine, and the most beautiful young women were brought to him. It was an honor to bear a child to the god; even the women of the sanctuary were not forbidden to him; though it is death for any other to lie with one of the priestesses. And at the end of his time . . ." She hesitated. "He was given to the fire."

 

Eilan was sitting very close to him. He could smell the fresh, wild-flower scent of her hair.

 

"I have heard that there is a new cult in Rome called the followers of the Nazarene who believe that their prophet was the son of their god and died for their sins," said Gaius. Personally, he favored Mithras, the soldiers' god.

 

"They are not only in Rome," she said. "My father says that some of them fled to Britannia when the Emperor was killing them. And the Druids allowed them to build a sanctuary at the Isle of Apples far to the south in the Summer Country. But here we have only the consort of the Goddess - or his substitute, who gives his blood to the land."

 

Shouting, teams of young men swung the effigies on to the bonfires, cheering as the flames surged against the sky. Eilan flinched as another group ran past, and Gaius put his arm around her protectively.

 

"Now they are burning all the evil spirits, and presently they will drive the cattle between the fires to keep them safe throughout the summer when they pasture them in the hills. The fires are very powerful . . ." She went red suddenly with something more than the heat of the flames.

 

"What else happens around the fires?" he asked gently, trembling a little with the effort it took not to draw her closer. Even through the gown he could feel the slender softness of her body. When he first met Eilan, he had thought her a child, but now, slender though she was, he realized that she was a woman, and knew that he wanted her.

 

"Well," she began hesitantly, looking fixedly into the flames, "on this night, while the fires of the Goddess burn, couples who are pledged leap over them, hand in hand, to honor the Goddess and to plead with her for children. And then they go into the forest together. Perhaps in the old days it was not known how children were made; but Ardanos says that they observed that children were born after they so honored the Lady - and folk still honor her by following that old custom . . ."

 

"I see," said Gaius gently, and felt his pulsebeat quickening.

 

"Of course," Eilan went on quickly, "it is not a thing that the daughters of chieftains or Druids do —"

 

"Of course not," said Gaius, very softly. His body was telling him that this was something the son of a Prefect could do very well, but he hoped he could keep it from Eilan. As the daughter of his host she should be as sacred to him as his own sister. "And yet, it would be lovely if . . ." he took a deep breath, "if we might honor the Goddess thus together . . ."

 

He could sense the heat and color in her cheeks, though it was now almost too dark to see. She stilled within the circle of his arm.

 

"I never thought . . ." She said softly, and stopped, beginning to tremble a little in turn. But she did not pull away.

 

"That is how I would show you what I feel for you," he said even more softly, as if he feared to frighten a wild bird that had alighted on his hand. She had told her tale with such innocence! Clotinus's daughter had made it clear that she would welcome his advances; and Gaius had only been disgusted by her boldness, but it seemed to him that he had never before felt for any maiden what he now felt for Eilan, sitting so trustingly by his side. She was so close to him that he could feel the warmth of her body. And every breath filled him with the flower scent of her fair hair.

 

As the shouting died down he heard the faint small sounds of the night: small animals rustling in the grass where the hill fell away behind the barrow; the rustle and snap of the fires, the cry somewhere of a bird. And now, excited by her story, he could hear other sounds in the spring night. On the slope behind them, men and women were making love.

 

He touched Eilan's cheek, and it was like the petal of a flower. Gently he turned her face towards him. Her eyes were wide and wondering, her lips a little parted. He felt her start of surprise as he kissed her, but she did not pull away. Her lips were sweet, so sweet that he held her against him and kissed her again, and after a moment of resistance felt her mouth opening beneath his like a flower.

 

Gaius fell into her sweetness. Dazed, every pulse pounding, it took him a moment to understand what had happened when she pushed him away.

 

"We must not!" she whispered. "My father would kill us both!"

 

Gaius forced his hands to open, to let her go. To lay hands on the daughter of his host was an impiety of the worst kind. Eilan should be as sacred to him as his own sister. Sacred . . . he understood abruptly that what he felt for her was a holy thing. He realized that when he let her go he had plunged his fingers instead into the grass, and sat up, wiping his hands.

 

"It is true." He was surprised that he could speak so steadily. His senses were still awhirl, but he felt the warmth of certainty within him. Since that first moment when he saw her looking down into the pit where he had fallen, haloed in light, it seemed to him that this moment had been preordained.

 

"It would shame us both, and there is no dishonor at all in what I feel for you. I love you, Eilan, as a man loves the woman he would make his wife."

 

"How can you?" she whispered, staring at the fire. "You are a stranger. You never even saw me until two weeks ago. Have you dreamed of me, too?"

 

"I am more of a stranger than you know," he said grimly. "But I will prove my love to you -" He gathered his courage. "Now I will put my life in your hands. I am a Roman, Eilan. I did not entirely lie," he added quickly as she pulled away. "Gawen was the name by which my mother called me; but my true name is Gaius Macellius Severus Siluricus, and I am not ashamed of my lineage. My mother was a royal daughter of the Silures, and my father is Camp Prefect of the Second Adiutrix Legion. If that makes you hate me, summon the guards and let them take my life."

 

She flushed and then went pale again. "I would never betray you."

 

He stared at her. My mother did . . .Suddenly he realized what an odd thought that was, for surely his mother had not wanted to die and leave him alone. Only now, back in her warm and colorful world, was he realizing how painful the shock of being wrenched away from it to the chill discipline of an army camp had been. Was that why he had never been able to reveal himself to any Roman girl as he was doing with Eilan now?

 

"Tomorrow I must go back to my people, but I give you my pledge that if I leave here unscathed, and if it does not displease you, I shall ask your father honorably for your hand!"

 

He could feel his heartbeat shaking his chest, but he could think of nothing else to say.

 

"It would not be displeasing to me, Gawen - Gaius," she said at last. Her voice was very soft, but her gaze never flinched from his own. "But I do not think my father would consent to give me to a Roman, especially to one born of the Legions. And even if he should agree, my grandsire would not; and Cynric —" The words came in a rush. "Cynric would kill you if he knew!"

 

"That might not be so easy," Gaius said, his pride wakening, though the same thought had occurred to him. "But is it really so impossible? Since we came to this island, a number of our officers have married British women of good family to cement alliances. I am half a Briton myself, after all."

 

"Perhaps," she said doubtfully, "but not in our family!"

 

"Well, my blood on both sides is surely as good as yours!"

 

She gave him an odd look, and he realized that his Roman pride was speaking. She did not seem to dislike it, but she was not convinced, either, and her stern father would be even harder to persuade.

 

"I have never met anyone I liked so well as you," she said helplessly, "and in so little time. I do not understand it, either," she admitted, "but somehow it seems as if I had known you from the beginning of the world."

 

"Maybe you have," Gaius said, almost in a whisper. For a moment he felt as innocent as the girl in his arms.

 

He said, "Some of the Greek philosophers believe that each soul comes back again and again to complete its mission on earth, and knows again those it has loved and hated in other lives. It may be that some fate from another life has guided us together, Eilan."

 

Even as he said it, he wondered at himself. How could he, Gaius Macellius Severus, speak so to any woman? But Eilan, he defended himself, was not "any woman"; never in his life had he felt so close to anyone. For the first time in his life, his feeling for a girl was almost mystical, something he did not know how to explain.

 

"The Druids teach this also," she said quietly. "The greatest of our priests have been many lifetimes upon this earth, living as stags and salmon and boars so that they may understand all that lives; and heroes whose lives are cut short are often born again. But as for me and you . . ." She frowned, and he found it hard to meet her clear gaze.

 

"I looked in a pool once and saw myself with a different face, and yet it was me. I think that then I was a priestess. Now I look at you, and I do not see a Roman or a Briton either. My heart tells me that you were a great man among your people - like a king."

 

Gaius flushed. This kind of talk always made him uncomfortable. "I am not a king now," he said gruffly, "and you are not a priestess. I want you in this life, Eilan!" He took her hand. "I want to see you in the morning when I wake and sleep with you in my arms. I feel as if all my life something has been missing and you make me whole! Can you understand?" It seemed impossible that tomorrow he would be going back to the Legions, impossible that he might not see her again.

 

For a time she gazed into the fire, then she turned back to him. "Before I met you I dreamed of you," she said softly. "Many of my family are second-sighted, and I see true things sometimes in my dreams. But this I have told no one. You are in the center of my heart already. I do not know what power is drawing us together, but I think that I have loved you before."

 

He bent to kiss the palm of her hand and she gave a tremulous sigh.

 

"I love you, Gaius. There is a bond between us. But how we can be together, that I cannot see . . ."

 

I should take her now, thought Gaius, then they would have to let us marry! He was about to pull her closer when a shape passed between them and the light. The space around the bonfires was filling with people. A glance at the stars told him that it was near midnight, and the moon was high. Where had the hours gone? Eilan exclaimed softly and started to get to her feet.

 

"What is it?" he asked. "What is going on?" In the distance he could hear rowdy shouts and laughter, but the mood of the people here was both subdued and joyous. The sense of expectation around him set his skin prickling.

 

"Hush!" Eilan whispered as he stood up beside her. "The Goddess comes . . ."

 

Somewhere beyond the circle of firelight flutes twittered, and Eilan went still. In the sudden silence, the hiss of the fire came clearly. The flames had burned down to brands that lit the space with a steady glow, cooled by the moonlight to a pale golden radiance like no light he had ever known.

 

Something glimmered beyond the circle of light. Druids in white robes were coming; men with flowing beards crowned with oak leaves, and with golden torques about their throats. Sunwise they circled the fires and halted, waiting. Their circle was as evenly spaced as guards around a camp perimeter, but their movement had none of the military precision which Gaius had learned. They simply came to rest where they ought to be, like the stars.

 

Silver bells shivered sweetly and the tension in the circle grew. Gaius blinked, but he could see nothing, and yet there was something moving, a mass of shadow that swept towards them. Abruptly he realized that he was seeing women's shapes swathed in draperies of a blue like midnight. They flowed into the circle and around it, silver ornaments jingling faintly, faces a pale blur beneath the veils.

 

Suddenly he understood. These were the priestesses of the Forest House, the sacred women who had escaped the rape of Mona. To see so many Druids together raised his hackles, and when he looked upon the shadow shapes of the priestesses he felt terror, and a sudden sense of destiny. Was his fate somehow entangled with that of the priestesses of the Forest House? The thought made his blood run cold and his grip tightened on Eilan's hand.

 

The last three priestesses moved towards the long-legged stool that had been set between the fires. The foremost was slender, a little bowed beneath her robes, flanked by a tall woman and another who was sturdier. Both had dark hair and silver ornaments. Both were unveiled, and he could see the woad-blue crescents tattooed between their brows. Gaius's first thought was that the tall girl would be a worthy opponent in a fight, while he sensed discontent in her companion's eyes.

 

The group paused, and there was some ritual with a golden basin that he could not understand. Then they helped the priestess to sit down on the three-legged stool and carried it to the top of the mound between the fires. The shimmer of sound from the bells reached a climax, then stopped.

 

"Children of Don, why have you come here?" The tall woman asked, calling them by the name of the mythic ancestress of the tribes.

 

"We seek the blessing of the Goddess," one of the Druids replied.

 

"Then call Her!"

 

Two of the women cast handfuls of herbs on the coals. Gaius's nostrils flared as the sweet-smelling smoke puffed and swirled outward, filling the space with a glowing haze. He was accustomed to incense, but he had never felt this odd sense of pressure before. He would have said the weather was changing, but the sky was clear.

 

Around him the whisper was becoming a murmur of many voices, a soft mutter of invocation and appeal. Beneath it all he heard the Druids humming, and it seemed to him that the earth beneath his feet throbbed in answer. Once more he was afraid. He glanced over at Eilan and saw her gaze, rapt and exalted, fixed upon the three figures between the fires.

 

From the veiled woman came a little whimper and he saw her sway.

 

She is like the Sibyl, thought Gaius, or the Pythia of Delphi that my tutor told me about. But he had never expected to see such a thing himself. The humming grew in intensity, and suddenly the veiled woman stilled and the other two backed away. He caught his breath, for somehow she seemed to have grown taller. She straightened, turning as if she was looking around her. Then she laughed softly and put back her veil.

 

Gaius had heard that the High Priestess of Vernemeton was old, but this woman blazed with beauty, and she gestured with a restless energy that had nothing to do with age. His Roman cynicism fled and his mother's blood rose up in him. It is true — all the tales are true — the Goddess is here . . .

 

"I am the green earth that cradles you and the womb of the waters . . ." she said in a voice whose soft resonance made it seem as if she spoke in his ear. "I am the white moon and the sea of stars. I am the night from which the first light was born. I am the mother of the gods; I am the virgin; I am the dark serpent that swallows all. Do you see me? Do you desire me? Do you accept me now?

 

"We see …" came the murmured answer. "We see you and adore . . ."

 

"Rejoice then, that life may continue. Sing, dance, feast and make love and you will have my blessing; the cattle will bear and the corn will grow."

 

"Lady!" a woman's voice rang out suddenly. "They have taken my man to the mines and my children are hungry. What will I do?"

 

"They took my son!" a man cried, and others echoed him. "When will you deliver us from the Romans? When will the war arrow fly?" A babble of protest rose and Gaius tensed, feeling the tension in the air. Eilan had only to say the word and they would tear him in pieces. But when he looked at her he saw her eyes bright with tears.

 

"Are you my children, that hear your sister's cry and do not provide for her?" Dark draperies swirled as the Goddess turned. "Care for one another! In the arcane volumes of the heavens, I have read the name of Rome, and on that scroll I say their name reads Death! Indeed, Rome will fall, but her fate is not yours to declare! So I have said, heed now my word!

 

"Remember the circle of life. All that you lose you will one day find, and that which has been taken from you will be restored. Behold, I bring down the power of heaven, that the world may be renewed!"

 

She lifted her hands to the moonlight, and it seemed to Gaius that the radiance grew brighter, so that her figure was obscured. The priestesses grouped around her began to sing:

 

"Upon these holy ancient trees, Now cast your lovely silver light; Uncloud your face that we may see Unveiled its shining in the night —"

 

Gaius shivered. He had never known that women's voices could be so beautiful. For a moment the whole world seemed spelled to silence; then the arms of the High Priestess swept outward. Her two priestesses whirled to either side, and in the same moment the bonfires blazed up furiously. Had they cast something on to the flames? He could not see - he could hardly think, for everyone was shouting.

 

"Dance!" The voice of the Goddess rose above them all. "Rejoice, receive my ecstasy!" For a moment she arched upward, arms extending as if to embrace the world. Then she slumped into the arms of the tall priestess.

 

But Gaius could not see what happened afterwards, for someone bumped into him. His grip tightened on Eilan's hand and he felt his other hand seized by a stranger. Drums sounded and suddenly they were moving, the whole circle was moving, and there was nothing in the world but the beat of the drum. As the beat whirled him outward, he glimpsed Cynric and Dieda across the circle, and it seemed to him that Dieda's face shone with tears.

 

A long time later, it seemed, the dance came to an end and Cynric and Dieda found them, but once the ecstasy had faded, their own despair kept them from wondering what Gaius and Eilan had found to talk about on that Beltane Eve. It was very late by the time they reached the home of Bendeigid, and no one appeared to suspect that the two couples had not spent the whole time together. Gaius was happy to have it so - far better to seek Eilan's hand from Deva with his father's force behind him than to let the Druid suspect that his guest had compromised his child while Gaius was in the older man's power.

 

But if he had been Eilan's acknowledged suitor, they might at least have allowed him to see her to say goodbye. Rheis had decreed a cleaning day, and all the women were hard at work. As it was, he had only Rheis's promise to convey his carefully edited farewell and a glimpse of Eilan's bright hair to sustain him as he took the road for Deva and the world of Rome.

 

 

 

 

 

Six

 

 

 

Macellius Severus senior, Prefectus Castrorum of the Second Adiutrix Legion at Deva, was a man just entering middle age, of a tall and commanding presence, who could conceal a formidable anger beneath an outward surface of calm. His mildness was deceptive. Big as he was, he never blustered or bellowed; he was soft-spoken, almost scholarly, and from time to time those who did not know him well were deceived into thinking him ineffectual.

 

This apparent mildness was a valuable asset in the position he now held: Camp Prefect, Prefectus Castrorum of Deva. In addition to remaining permanently in charge of the camp, he served as a sort of liaison between Legion and populace; he was not responsible to the Commander of the Legion, but only to the Governor of the Province, and the newly instituted Legatus Juridicus; but since the Governor was in the field in Caledonia, and the Juridicus was stationed in Londinium, that meant, in this distant outpost, that his word was effective civilian law. Fortunately he worked well with the legionary Commander, under whom he had served in several campaigns long ago, and who had encouraged his efforts to fulfill the financial requirements necessary to rise to the rank of equestrian, the middle classes who were the backbone of the Roman government.

 

Macellius Severus secured supplies and rations for the entire Legion, directed quartering, and acted as general liaison officer between the populace — both Briton and Roman - and the army. In theory, he also represented the interests of the civilian population. In requisitioning supplies for the Legions, he was required to see that the people who provided them were left with adequate food and manpower to avoid driving them to revolt. Hence the actual management of the Ordovia lands around Deva lay more in his hands, except in time of war, than in those of the legionary Commander.

 

His office, small and austere, and constructed with a rigid economy of space, somehow accommodated a daily overflow of civilians and military personnel, with a long string of complaints, requests and petitions. Sometimes Macellius, who was not a small man, seemed as if physically forced into a corner.

 

He had almost finished with this morning's accumulation. Seated on a kind of folding chair and frowning at a roll of parchment in his lap, he was pretending to listen patiently to a plump and effeminate townsman in the toga of a Roman citizen who had been talking uninterruptedly for about twelve minutes. Macellius could have stopped him at any time, but as a matter of fact he had not heard one word in twenty; he was reading the supply list. It would have been rude to turn away a petitioner simply to study a list; it cost nothing to let the man talk while he read it. In any case, he had heard enough to know that Lucius Varullus was simply saying one thing over and over with a number of oratorical variations.

 

"Surely you don't wish me to go to the Legate, Macellius," the falsetto voice continued querulously. Macellius rolled up the list and put it aside, deciding he had listened long enough.

 

"You can if you like, of course," he protested mildly, "but I doubt if he'd give you even this much of a hearing, if he had time for you at all." He knew his Commander well. "You must remember that these are restless times. A certain amount of sacrifice . . ."

 

The plump underlip of the man across the table went out in protest. "No, no, of course not," he said, waving his hand in a delicate gesture. "My dear fellow, no one, absolutely no one is readier than I to realize that, but how can I work my farms and my gardens if all the men in the area have been levied? Surely the peace and comfort of Roman citizens must be the first consideration? Why, I've had to put my landscape gardeners to work in the turnip patches! You should see my flower gardens!" he concluded mournfully.

 

"Now really," Macellius said offhandedly. "I'm not responsible for arranging native conscriptions." Silently, he cursed the shade of the Emperor who had extended Roman citizenship to fools like this. "I'm sorry, Lucius," he said — he was lying, and wasn't sorry at all - "I can't do anything for you now."

 

"Oh, but my dear fellow, you simply must."

 

"Look," said Macellius briefly, "you're chasing the wrong horse.

 

Go to the Legate if you like, and see what kind of answer he gives you; I doubt he'll be anywhere near as patient as I have been. Bring over slaves from Gaul, or offer better wages." Or, he added silently, get out there with a pitchfork yourself and work off some of that fat. "Now, if you please, I'm very busy this morning." He let his gaze fall on the scroll again and coughed discreetly

 

Varullus started to protest, but Severus had already turned to his secretary, a skinny sad-looking youngster. "Who's next, Valerius?"

 

After Varullus had grumbled his way out, the secretary showed in a drover who had sold cattle to the Legions. Bonnet in hand, he begged the Excellency's pardon in stumbling market-Latin for troubling him, but the roads were so beset with bandits . . .

 

Macellius addressed the man fluently in his own Silurian dialect. "Speak up, man. What's troubling you?"

 

When the countryman poured out his story, it appeared that he had been hired to drive his cattle overland to the coast, and there were thieves and robbers, and the cattle already belonged to the Legion, and he was a poor man who could not support the loss of them to outlaws . . .

 

Macellius held up a hand. "All right," he said, not unkindly, "you want a military escort. I'll give you a note to one of the centurions. Take care of it, Valerius." He nodded to the secretary, "Give him a note to Paulus Appius and tell him to take care of escorting this army beef. No, man, don't apologize, that's what I'm here for."

 

When the drover had gone out, he added testily, "What's Paulus thinking of? Why in heaven's name did this come all the way up to me? Any decurion down the line could have handled it!" He drew breath, striving for his customary calm. "Well, send in the next one."

 

Next was a Briton named Tascio who had come about selling some rye. Macellius scowled. "I won't see him; that last lot he sold us was rotten. But we need it; grain's in short supply. Listen. Offer this gouger half of what he asks; and before you sign for the treasurer to give him his pay, get half a dozen of the cooks from the messes to come and look it over. If it's rotten or moldy, dump and burn it; rotten rye will give the men the burning sickness. If it's good, pay him the half agreed on, and if he gives you any trouble, threaten to have him flogged for cheating the Legion. Sextillus told me five men were poisoned by the damned stuff last time. If he still kicks up a fuss, turn him over to Appius," he went on, "and I'll put in a complaint to the Druid Curia, and what they'll do to him won't be half so kind. And by the way, if this lot is rotten put him on the blacklist and tell him not to come around here again. Is that clear?"

 

Valerius, looking sadder than ever, complied. For all his skinny poverty of appearance, he was extremely efficient at this sort of thing. As he started to leave, Macellius heard his incongruously husky bass rise in surprise.

 

"Hullo, young Severus. You're back again?" Macellius heard a familiar voice reply, "Salve, Valerius. Hey, take it easy, that arm's still sore! Is my father in?"

 

Macellius arose so precipitately that he upset his chair. "Gaius! My dear boy, I was beginning to worry about you!" He came round the desk and briefly clasped his son in his arms. "What kept you so long?"

 

"I came as soon as I could," Gaius apologized.

 

He felt the boy flinch as his grip tightened and abruptly let go. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

 

"Not really, it's nearly healed. Are you busy, Father?"

 

Macellius looked around the small office. "Nothing here that Valerius can't handle perfectly well." He regarded his son's dusty garments with disapproval, and said with some sternness, "Must you go about the camp dressed like a freedman or a native?"

 

Gaius's lips tightened briefly, as if "native" had stung. But his voice was matter of fact and without apology when he replied. "It's safer to travel this way."

 

"Humph!" But Macellius knew it was true. "Well then, couldn't you at least bathe and dress decently before coming into my presence?"

 

"I thought you might be anxious about me, Father," Gaius said "seeing that I'd overstayed my leave by a couple of days. With your permission I will go and bathe and dress. The only bath I've had this week was in the river."

 

"Don't be in a hurry.," Macellius said grumpily. "I'll come with you." He let his hand rest on the younger man's forearm, gripping it without words. For some absurd reason he always worried whenever Gaius was away that the boy would not return; he did not know why, for the youngster had always been very self-sufficient. Seeing the bandaged arm had frightened him. "Tell me what happened now; why the bandages?"

 

"I fell in a trap dug for boars," Gaius said. "One of the stakes

 

went through my shoulder." His father paled, and Gaius added reassuringly, "It's all but healed now; doesn't even hurt unless I knock it against something. I'll be carrying a sword again in six weeks."

 

"How?"

 

"How did I get out?" The boy grimaced. "Some Britons found me and doctored me till I was on my feet again."

 

Macellius's face betrayed what he could not express. "I hope you rewarded them suitably." But Gaius appeared to understand the solicitude hidden behind the indirection.

 

"On the contrary, Father, hospitality was offered in a noble manner and I accepted it in kind."

 

"I see." Macellius did not press the matter. Gaius tended to be touchy about his British blood.

 

At the military baths just outside the stockade, Macellius chose a low chair while Gaius was stripped and scrubbed by the army attendants. Once his personal slave had been despatched to their house for clean garments, Macellius lay back in his chair wondering what the boy had been up to now. There was a difference in him, something more than could be explained by the injury. For a moment he wished himself back in his office dealing with questions that could be quickly dismissed.

 

Presently Gaius emerged from the bath looking young and very clean in his short wool tunic, his damp hair curling down his back. He sent for a barber-slave and as the man clipped the unruly hair to proper military shortness and scraped away the nascent beard, he recounted his adventure. Clearly he was leaving some things out, thought Macellius. Why had Clotinus Albinus not reported the accident? He felt a moment of gratitude at being spared the kind of unpleasantness any irregularity would involve.

 

"You should have a regular army doctor look at that arm," he said simply when the tale was done.

 

Gaius protested irritably, "It's doing well enough." But Macellius insisted, and after a certain amount of delay old Manlius came and unbound Cynric's careful bandages, and probed and poked and pressed until Gaius was white-faced and sweating. Then he solemnly pronounced that the arm was healed as well as if he had had the care of it from the beginning.

 

"I could have told you that —" muttered the boy, refusing to meet his father's eyes. Good, thought the older man, he knows better than to argue with me . . .

 

Gaius lay back limply, his good hand falling away from a fumbling attempt to repin his tunic, yet he grinned as Macellius reached out and refastened it, reaching up to take his father's hand in his own.

 

"I told you I was all right, Dad, you old Stoic," he said roughly. Macellius thought again, He's a handsome boy; I wonder what sort of devilry he's been up to? Well, he has a right to a certain amount of folly. Better not let him know that, though . . ." He cleared his throat, glad that no one else was using the bathhouse at this time of day.

 

"So, what excuse can you offer for overstaying your leave, Son?"

 

Gaius nodded at his arm.

 

"I understand; of course you couldn't travel with that injury, and I'll speak to Sextillus. Another time, allow for accidents. But you're not some patrician puppy who can slack. Your grandfather was a farmer outside Tarentum, and I've had to work hard to get this far. Gaius, what would you say to not going back to Glevum?"

 

"Do you mean they would courtmartial me for overstaying leave because of an accident -?" He looked so upset that Macellius hastened to reassure him.

 

"No, no, I didn't mean it that way. I mean, would you care to be transferred to my staff? I need someone to help me here, and when I spoke to the Governor on his way north he agreed to make an exception and let you serve with me. It's time I started introducing you to my connections here. The Province is growing, Gaius. Intelligence and energy will carry a man far. If I could rise to the rank of Equestrian, only one rung below the nobility, who knows how far you might go?"

 

He saw the trouble in Gaius's eyes, and wondered if his son was in pain. It seemed a long time before the boy replied. "I've never understood why you stayed here in Britain, Father. Couldn't you have risen more quickly if you had been willing to go elsewhere? It's a big empire."

 

"Britain isn't the whole world," said Macellius, "but I like it." His face grew grave. "They offered me a Juridicus post once in Hispania. I should have taken it, if only for your sake."

 

"Why Hispania, Father? Why not of Britain?" As soon as the question left his lips, Gaius seemed aware that it had been a mistake. Macellius felt his own face stiffening.

 

"The Emperor Claudius was so busy trying to reform things at home, from the Senate and the coinage to the state religion, that he never got around to reforming the military laws," Macellius explained, "and the emperors who came after him seemed to think that he, as the official conqueror of Britain, knew what he was doing."

 

"I don't understand what you mean, Father."

 

"I visited Rome just once," Macellius said. "And Londinium is more like the Rome I was brought up to honor than Rome is now. The Empire is in the devil of a mess, Gaius; that shouldn't come as any surprise to you." He frowned, then with sudden irritability turned on the slave who stood by their chairs and demanded, "Get us something to eat, don't stand there gawking."

 

When they were alone he turned back to Gaius, "What I'm going to say now comes under the official heading of treason; when I finish speaking, forget you heard it won't you? But as an officer of the Legion I have a certain responsibility. If there's ever going to be any reform, it may have to come from the Provinces, like Britain. Titus . . .this is dangerous talk . . .Titus is well meaning, but he seems to care more about increasing his popularity than governing the Empire. Domitian, his brother, is at least efficient, but I've heard rumors that his ambition may outrun his patience. If he falls heir to the purple and becomes Emperor, then what little power is left to the Senate and People of Rome may disappear.

 

"I would advance my family in the old way, by service and solid achievement, one generation following another," Macellius continued very deliberately. "You asked me why I stayed in Britain. Julius Classicus tried to create a Gallic empire not ten years ago. After Vespasian crushed him, he decreed that auxiliaries could not be used in the country of their birth, and the Legions must be drawn from a mix of men from all over the Empire. That's why I had such a hard time gaining permission for you to serve in Britain, and why, it might have been wiser for us to seek our fortunes in Hispania, or somewhere like that. Rome's deepest fear is that the subject nations may rise again . . ."

 

"But you raised me to revere the old virtues of Rome. What do you want, Father - since we are speaking frankly - and what do you fear?"

 

Macellius looked at the smooth face of the boy before him, searching for some trace of his own father's rugged strength. There was a resemblance, perhaps, in the strong line of the jaw, but the boy's nose was Celtic, short, almost snubbed, like his mother's. No wonder he had looked like a Briton when he walked through the door, Is he weak, he wondered, or only young? And then, "Where do his loyalties really lie?

 

"Chaos . . ." he said soberly. "The world upside down. The time of the four Emperors, or the Killer Queen again. You wouldn't remember, but it seemed to us that the world was ending the year that you were born . . ."

 

"You think Roman and British rebellion are equally dangerous?" Gaius asked curiously.

 

"Have you read Valerius Maximus?" his father said suddenly. "If not, read him sometime; there used to be a couple of copies in the legionary library here. It's a scandalous book; he never should have written it. He damn near lost his head in Nero's day, and I'm not surprised. He started writing in the days of the deified Tiberius, but he makes some good points about some of the Emperors that followed him - to say some of them were as fallible as G—, well, as gods always are, isn't treason - not now, anyway. The point is, even a bad Emperor is better than civil war."

 

"But you said that reform might have to come from the Provinces—"

 

Macellius grimaced. At least there was nothing wrong with the boy's memory.

 

"Reform, not rebellion . . .You may remember that I also said that these days Londinium is like Rome used to be. The old Roman virtues can survive in the Provinces, away from the corruption that surrounds the Emperor. In a lot of ways, the tribes here are like the country people where I was born. Give them the best of Roman culture, and maybe Britain can become what Rome was supposed to be."

 

"Is that why you married my mother?" Gaius said into the silence.

 

Macellius looked at him and blinked, seeing once more a girl's fine-boned face and dusky hair, remembering how she used to sing as she pulled the horn comb through her heavy curls, sparkling with red glints as they caught the light of the fire. Moruadh . . .Moruadh . . .why did you leave me alone?

 

"Perhaps it was one reason," he replied at last. "But perhaps it justifies it. We had hopes then of joining our two peoples. But that was before Classicus . . .and Boudicca. Perhaps it can still happen, but it will take longer, and you will have to be more Roman than the Romans to survive."

 

"What have you heard?" asked Gaius, frowning.

 

"The Emperor, Titus, has been ill. I don't like it. He's still a young man. He might die in bed, but after him, who knows? I don't trust Domitian. A piece of advice, Son: try to live without ever coming to the attention of a prince. Are you ambitious?"

 

"All gods forbid," said Gaius.

 

But Macellius had seen the flash of pride in his eyes. Well, ambition was no bad thing in a young man, if well directed. He gave a short laugh. "In any case, it's time we took the next step to advance the family. Nothing that will upset the Emperor . . .but you are, what, nineteen now? It's time you were married."

 

"I'll be twenty in a few weeks, Father," said Gaius suspiciously. "Do you have someone in mind for me?"

 

"I suppose you know that Clotinus - yes, old Bedbugs - has a daughter . . ." Macellius began, and stopped when his son started laughing.

 

"All gods forbid. I practically had to kick her out of my bed when I guested there."

 

"Clotinus is going to be one of the big men in the Province, even if he is British. If you'd set your heart on his daughter, I would be willing enough to go along, but not if she is so immodest. My father may have been only a plebeian, but he could name all his ancestors. The honor of the family requires that your sons be of your own fathering."

 

He looked up as the slave appeared in the doorway with a tray of hard biscuits and some wine. He poured, handed a goblet to Gaius, and drank deeply before speaking again.

 

"Here's an idea you may like better. You may not remember this, but when you were a child a tentative betrothal was arranged between you and the daughter of an old friend. He's now the Procurator, Licinius."

 

"Father," Gaius said quickly, "have you spoken to him lately? — I hope you haven't settled things too far -"

 

Macellius stared at him narrowly. "Why? Is there some other young girl you're lusting after? It won't do, you know. A marriage is a social and economic alliance. Be guided by me, Son; these romantic attractions don't last." He could see the dull flush that darkened his son's fair skin.

 

Very carefully, Gaius took another sip of wine. "There is a girl, but it is not lust I feel for her. I have offered her marriage," he said evenly.

 

"What? Who is she?" Macellius barked, turning to stare at his son.

 

"The daughter of Bendeigid."

 

The wine cup clicked loudly as Macellius set it down.

 

"Impossible. He's a proscribed man, and, if I mistake not, a Druid. Of good family, so I'll say nothing against the girl if she's his kin, but that only makes it worse. Those sorts of marriages —"

 

"You made one," Gaius interrupted.

 

"And it nearly destroyed my career! Your girl may be as fine a woman as your mother, but one misalliance of that kind is enough for any family," Macellius exclaimed. Moruadh, forgive me, his heart cried. I loved you, but I have to save our boy.

 

"Things were different then," he continued more temperately. "Since Boudicca's rebellion, a connection with any but the most loyal of British families would be a disaster. And you especially must be careful, because you are your mother's son. Do you think I have endured thirty years in the Legions just to see you throw it all away?" He splashed more wine into his cup and drank it down.

 

"There's no limit to what you could do if you have the right connections, and the Procurator's daughter is a prize. The family is related to the Julians after all. Meanwhile, if you have a taste for romantic adventure, there are plenty of slaves and freedwomen; keep your thoughts off these British girls." He glared at his son.

 

"Eilan is different - I love her."

 

"Your Eilan is the daughter of a Druid!" Macellius replied. "He was charged once with inciting the Auxilia to revolt. They couldn't prove it, so they banished him; he was lucky not to have been hanged or crucified. But for all that you don't want to get yourself entangled in any way with his family. She's not pregnant or anything?"

 

"Eilan is as innocent as any Vestal," Gaius said stiffly.

 

"Humph; I wouldn't bet on it; they don't view these things as we should," Macellius observed. Seeing Gaius's gaze darken, he added, "Don't look at me so - I'm not doubting you. But if the girl is virtuous, it is all the more ruinous for you to set your heart on her. Accept it, lad, she's not for you."

 

"That's for her father to decide," Gaius said hotly, "not you!"

 

Macellius grunted. "Mark me, her father will view such an alliance much as I do, as a major catastrophe for both of you. Forget her, and turn your thoughts to some good Roman girl. I've won enough status here to ally you to whomever you choose."

 

"So long as she's named Julia Licinia . . ." Gaius answered bitterly. "What if Licinius's daughter doesn't want a husband with British blood?"

 

Macellius shrugged. "I'll write to Licinius tomorrow. If she's a proper Roman girl, she'll think of her marriage as part of her duty to her family and to the State. But married you shall be, before you disgrace us all."

 

Gaius shook his head stubbornly. "We shall see. If Bendeigid is willing to give me his daughter, I will marry Eilan. My honor is pledged to her."

 

"No; impossible," Macellius said. "And what's more, if I know anything about Bendeigid, he'll react pretty much the same way." Damn it, he thought, the problem is that he's too much like me. Does he think I'll let it drop? The boy might believe his father did not understand - young people always thought that they were the only ones who had ever loved — but the truth was that Macellius understood only too well. Moruadh had been fire in his blood, but she had never been happy, prisoned by square stone walls. The Roman women had laughed at her and her own people had cursed her. He would not let his son live with the pain of knowing that he, too, had brought only sorrow to the woman he adored.

 

Macellius's campaign bonuses had been well invested, and he had enough wealth to be comfortable when he retired, but not enough for his son unless Gaius also had a career. He would do Moruadh no honor by allowing her son to throw his future away.

 

"Father," Gaius continued, in a tone his father had never heard before, "I love Eilan; she is the only woman I will ever marry. And if her father will not give her to me, Rome is not the whole world, you know."

 

Macellius glared. "You had no right to make such a commitment. Marriage is a matter for families; if I send to request her hand for you, it will be against my own better judgment."

 

"But you will do it?" Gaius persisted, and against his will Macellius softened.

 

"There is no parting a fool and his folly; I can send to Bendeigid. But when he refuses you we will hear no more of this. I will write to Licinius then, and have you married before the new year."

 

There was something to be said, he thought, for the old days when fathers had held the power of life and death even over grown sons. The law was still on the books — for all the good it did anyone; no father in hundreds of years had formally invoked it, and he knew himself too well to think he would be the first. But he would not have to. Eilan's father could deliver that blow far more effectively than he.

 

 

 

 

 

Seven

 

 

 

In the days following Gaius's departure the bright sun of Beltane hid behind weeping skies, as if the season had decided not to turn into summer after all. Eilan crept around the house like a ghost. Days passed and Gaius sent no word. Just before leaving for the Forest House Dieda had said that she should have given herself to Gaius. Would he be more or less likely to forget her if she had done so?

 

After all, the high festivals existed in a time of their own. That night when they sat together watching the fires was like some dream of the Otherworld. In that time when the doors opened between the worlds, anything seemed possible - even the marriage of the daughter of a Druid to a Roman officer. But now, surrounded by the familiar sights and sounds of her home, she began to doubt herself, her love, and Gawen - or Gaius, as she supposed she ought to call him - most of all.

 

And the worst of it was that no one seemed to notice her pain. Mairi had insisted on returning to her own dwelling to await the return of her husband, and Rheis was busy with all the tasks that summer brought. She might have confided in Dieda, but her kinswoman was in the Forest House, where she must be dealing with her own heartaches and regrets. The skies wept, Eilan's heart wept with them, and no one seemed to care at all.

 

At last a day came when her father sent for her. He was sitting beside the hearth in the feasting hall — only ashes now, for though the sky was grey and clouded, it was warm enough not to need a fire. An odd mix of anger and amusement softened his usual sternness. "Eilan," he said gently, "I feel I should let you know this; an offer has been made for your hand."

 

Gaius, she thought. My doubts wronged him!

 

"But of course it was one I could not entertain. How much do you know about the young man who called himself Gawen?"

 

"What do you mean?" Surely he could hear the rapid beating of her heart.

 

"Did he tell you his true name? Did he tell you that his father is Macellius Severus, Prefect of the camp at Deva?"

 

She saw the anger now beneath Bendeigid's gentleness, and fought to still her trembling; but she nodded.

 

"Then at least he did not deceive you." Her father sighed, "But you must put him far from your thoughts, Daughter. You are not yet of full age to marry -"

 

She raised her head to protest. Why had she not considered that her own father was far more likely to refuse permission than Gaius to deny his love?

 

"I can wait," she whispered, not daring to raise her eyes.

 

Her father went on, "I am not used to being a tyrant to my children, Eilan; if the truth be told I have been all too gentle with you. If you feared me, you would not speak this way. But this thing cannot be, Daughter - no, hold you still," he commanded, "I still have something to say to you."

 

"What else is there?" Eilan exclaimed, flinching at his grip on her wrist. "You have refused him, haven't you?"

 

"I want you to understand why." His tone softened. "I bear no grudge against the lad, and if he were one of our own, I would gladly give you to him. But oil mixes not with water, nor lead with silver, nor Roman with Briton."

 

"He is only half Roman," she protested. "His mother was a tribeswoman of the Silures. He seemed Briton enough when he guested here."

 

Her father shook his head. "That makes it all the worse. He is the bastard son of a marriage - an unlawful marriage I call it - into a race of traitors, for traitors were the Silures before ever the Romans came over the sea, stealing our cattle and poaching in our hunting runs. It would be to compound folly upon folly to marry ^f you to a child of our ancient enemies. I have even spoken to Ardanos of this and though he talks of peace to come of it, as if you were child to one of our queens and he son to a Caesar, I know it cannot be."

 

Her eyes widened at the thought that the Arch-Druid, of all people, might stand her friend. But her father was still talking.

 

"From the tone of the letter, my guess is that Macellius Severus likes it no better than I. Nothing could come of such a marriage but torn loyalties for you both. If Gaius is willing to forsake Rome for you, then I want him not among our kin. And if he cleaves to his own, then would you be outcast among our people, and I would not have that for you."

 

Eilan did not look up. "For him I would bear it," she said, her voice just audible.

 

"Yes, in your madness, I believe you would," her father said harshly. "Youth is ever ready to defy the world. But our blood is not traitor blood, Eilan. For every moment you betrayed your kin with him, the ravens would peck at your heart in secret. His voice softened, "What is more, it is not you alone but all our kindred who would be forced to break one bond after another.

 

"Eilan, this you must understand; I bear no grudge against Gawen; he was a guest in my house, and it were to chop logic to say he lied to me when none had asked his true name. If grudge there might be, it would only be that he worked in secret to set you against your kin."

 

Eilan's words were all but inaudible. "He dealt honorably and uprightly with both me and you."

 

"Have I questioned that?" responded Bendeigid. "But he who asks pledges himself to abide the answer. They asked me fairly and honorably for your hand; fairly and straightforwardly I answered. And there's an end of it."

 

She said in a strangled voice, "Another man less honorable might have so dealt with me that you would have been grateful to be rid of me."

 

Black anger suffused her father's face and for the first time in memory she feared him. He jerked her towards him, and struck her - though not hard - across the mouth.

 

"No more —" he said. "No more! Had I slapped you more often when you were a child, I should not now need to strike you for that shameless speech."

 

Eilan sank down on the bench as he released her; ten days ago she would have wept if her father spoke so to her; now she felt that nothing would ever make her shed another tear.

 

He said emphatically, "You will marry no Roman while I am above ground; no, nor after it either if I have my way. And if you should tell me that things had so gone with you that you must marry this son of half-Roman traitors, or give me a bastard to call me grandsire, no man in all the length and breadth of Britain would blame me if I drowned you with my own hands. Spare me that blush of modesty, Daughter, you had none a moment ago!"

 

Eilan would have preferred to face her father on her feet, but her knees were trembling so that she could not rise. "Can you really think such shame of me?"

 

"It was not I who first named it," her father retorted. Then his voice softened. "Child, child," he admitted, "I spoke in anger. You are a good girl, and my true daughter, I ask your forgiveness. Now, enough of this kind of talk. You ride north tomorrow; your sister Mairi will have need of a kinswoman, for her child will be born soon, and at this season your mother cannot be spared. It seems all too likely now that her husband, Rhodri, was captured by Romans when he went off after the levies. So even if all had gone otherwise, this would be no season to be offering me a Roman son-in-law."

 

Eilan nodded dumbly. Bendeigid put his arm around her, and said gently, "Wiser I am and older than you, Eilan. The young see for themselves alone. Do you think I have not seen you pining? I thought it was only that you missed Dieda, but my main anger at this half-Roman bastard is that he has given you such pain."

 

She nodded, standing stiffly in his embrace, feeling a world away. He had said that a raven would peck at her heart if she married Gaius, and she had thought it only a poetic way of speaking. But now she realized that he had spoken sober truth, for the pain in her heart was as sharp, as if indeed a raven's beak were stabbing her.

 

Feeling her resistance, her father said irritably, "Your mother spoke truth when she said you were too long unmarried. This winter I will seek out a husband for you, one of our own."

 

Eilan tore herself from his arms, her eyes blazing. "I have no choice but to obey you," she said bitterly, "but if I am not to marry at my own will, I will marry no man upon the face of this earth."

 

"As you will," he said bitterly. "I will never seek to force you. But Senara I will pledge before she binds on her maiden's girdle. I will not have this sort of struggle with a daughter again!"

 

The rain continued to fall for many days, swelling rivers and streams and drowning fields, roads and paths. It was very near the time when Mairi should be delivered, and still her husband's fate was unknown. She had admitted that she would perhaps have done better to remain under her father's roof until her child was delivered, but in such weather it would have been more risky for her to travel than to stay at home. It was Eilan, therefore, who traveled to her sister's steading, escorted by two of her father's men.

 

Although she still wept at night when she thought of Gaius, Eilan found herself glad that she had come. She was useful here; her sister needed someone to talk to, and her little nephew was fretful and confused because his mother had ceased to suckle him and his father had disappeared. Mairi was too clumsy now to pay him much heed; but Eilan had the patience to sit for hours feeding him with a horn spoon, and he recovered some of his laughter when she played with him.

 

As the rain continued to fall, there were times when Eilan wondered if she would be left alone to deliver her sister's second child. But Mairi had arranged for a priestess to come. "All the women of the Forest House are trained in such matters, Sister," Mairi told her, rubbing her back which ached constantly now. "You've no need to fear." It was the evening of her fourth day with her sister, and Eilan was beginning to feel at home.

 

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if they were to send Dieda to us?"

 

"She is new come to the Forest House and may not go outside during her first year. They have promised to send one of Lhiannon's attendants, a woman of Hibernia called Caillean." She spoke so dryly that Eilan wondered if Mairi disliked the woman, but thought it better not to ask.

 

Three days later, Caillean herself arrived: a tall woman, bundled in shawls and scarves that left only her eyes and heavy dark hair visible. Against the blackness of her hair and brows her skin looked milk-pale, but her eyes were blue. As she unwrapped herself, a shift in the wind brought gusts of smoke from the hearth, and the priestess began to cough. Eilan hurried to fill a mug of ale and offered it to her silently.

 

The priestess said in a low voice, "I thank you, child, but I am not allowed; if I might have some water . . ."

 

"Of course," Eilan murmured, blushing, and hastened to fill a drinking cup at the cask by the door. "Or I could draw it freshly from the well —"

 

"No, this will do very well," the priestess said, taking the cup from her hand and draining it. "I thank you. But who is the woman with child? You are not much more than a child yourself."

 

"It is Mairi who is having the baby," Eilan murmured. "I am Eilan, Bendeigid's middle daughter. And there is another, Senara, who is only nine."

 

"My name is Caillean."

 

"I saw you at Beltane, but I did not know your name. I thought surely that Lhiannon's assistant would be —" She stopped bashfully.

 

Caillean completed the sentence. "Older? More dignified? I have been with Lhiannon since she brought me from the western shores of Eriu. I was four-and-ten or thereabouts when we came to the Forest House, and I have been there now for sixteen years."

 

"Do you know my kinswoman Dieda?"

 

"Certainly I do, but she dwells with the maidens; there are many of us, and we are not all of one order. Now that I see you, I understand - but that is for later. Let me speak now to your sister."

 

Eilan led her to Mairi, now so pregnant that she moved with difficulty, and withdrew a little to give them some privacy. She could hardly hear the low murmur as Caillean questioned Mairi at length. There was something soothing in the quiet lilt of the priestess's voice.

 

Eilan could see the tension leaving Main's face, and realized for the first time that her sister had been afraid. She did not flinch as Caillean pressed her belly with her long hands. When she had done, Mairi lay back with a sigh.

 

"I think the babe will not be born today, and perhaps not tomorrow. Rest now, lass, for you will need all your strength when the time comes," Caillean said soothingly.

 

When Mairi was settled again, Caillean rejoined Eilan near the fire. "Is it true that her husband has disappeared?" she asked in an undertone.

 

"We fear he was taken by the Romans," Eilan replied. "My father warned me not to mention it to Mairi."

 

For a moment Caillean's gaze went inward. "Do not, for I fear she will not see him again."

 

Eilan looked at her in horror. "You have heard something?"

 

"I have seen the omens, and they bode not well."

 

"Poor Mairi, poor love. How shall we tell her?"

 

"Say nothing now," Caillean counseled. "I will tell her myself after the birthing, when she will have reason to live for her child."

 

Eilan shuddered, for she was fond of Mairi and it seemed to her that the priestess had spoken of death just as she spoke of life, without feeling or regret for either. But she supposed that to a priestess, life and death must mean something quite other than what they meant to Eilan.

 

"I hope she has menfolk to care for her children's inheritance," Caillean went on.

 

"My father has no sons," Eilan said. "But Cynric will do a brother's duty to Main if there is need."

 

"Is he not the son of Bendeigid?"

 

"A foster son only; we were brought up together; he has always been very fond of Mairi. He is away in the North now."

 

"I have heard of this Cynric," Caillean said, and Eilan wondered just how much the priestess did know. "And indeed your sister will be in need of kin."

 

That night a new storm came whirling in from the west, and Eilan, waking in the night, heard it beating around the house like a wild thing; when morning came, the trees were still blowing and tossing before the blast. But though a few handfuls of thatch were plucked from the roof, the roundhouse only groaned and shuddered before each new gust of wind, where a more rigid structure might have given way. The rain still fell relentlessly, but Caillean, staring out into the downpour, looked pleased.

 

"There are rumors of raiders from the coast," she said when Eilan questioned her. "If all the ways are flooded, they will not come this far inland."

 

"Raiders?" Mairi echoed, looking frightened. But Caillean would not repeat herself, saying only that to name an evil was often to draw it near. By early evening the worst of the wind had blown itself out, and the weather settled to hard, insistent rain, leaving all the world awash with the sound of water, and of springs and cisterns overflowing. Fortunately there was a good supply of wood cut and stacked in a shed near the main house, so they built up a cheery blaze and Caillean unwrapped the small musical instrument she carried swaddled like a child. Eilan had never known a woman to play a harp; she herself had been beaten as a child for touching her grandfather's.

 

"Oh, it's true, there are woman bards among us," Caillean said, "though I play only for my own pleasure. I think that Dieda will become one."

 

"I am not surprised," said Eilan a little wistfully. "She sings beautifully."

 

"Are you envious, child? There are other gifts than music, you know." The priestess frowned at Eilan thoughtfully, then appeared to come to a decision. "Did you not know she was chosen by mistake for you?"

 

Eilan stared, remembering all those times during her childhood when she had played at priestess, and the vision that had come to her when Lhiannon's cloak enfolded the other girl.

 

"Have you never thought of it, little one?"

 

Eilan did not reply. Of course, she had dreamed of such a thing for a long time, but then she had met Gaius. How could she be meant for a priestess if she was capable of such love for a man?

 

"Well, there is no need to make a decision now," Caillean said, smiling. "We will talk of this another time."

 

Eilan stared at her, and suddenly with doubled vision she saw the two of them together, lifting their arms in homage to the moon. But though recognition was total, she realized in surprise that Caillean's hair was not dark, but red, their features alike as those of sisters, and her own face was the one she had seen once before in the forest pool. Sisters . . .and more than sisters. Women, and more than women . . .The words came to her from some place beyond memory.

 

Then, with a little shock she remembered that she had never spoken with Caillean until yesterday. But as it had been with Gaius, it suddenly seemed to her that she had known the priestess from the beginning of the world.

 

Caillean had been playing for a long time when Mairi stood up suddenly and cried out, staring down at the dark stain that was spreading across her gown. The other two looked up in surprise.

 

"Have your waters broken already?" the priestess asked. "Well, love, babes come when they wish and not at our convenience; we'd better have you to bed. Eilan, go find the shepherd and have him bring in more wood for the fire. Then build up the fire and fill the cauldron and bring water to a boil. Mairi will be wanting hot tea before this is over, and so will we."

 

As Caillean had no doubt expected, having something to do calmed the younger girl. "Are you better now?" the priestess asked when Eilan returned. "I have often found it a mistake to allow any woman who has not herself borne a child to be in the room at a birth; it only frightens. But if you are to join us in the Forest House, sooner or later you will have to learn."

 

Eilan swallowed and nodded, determined to justify the older woman's faith in her. For the first hour or two Mairi dozed between pains, rousing only a few times an hour to cry out, almost as if in her sleep. Eilan dozed on the bench near the fire; it was the darkest part of the night and the rain had settled down to a soft insistent pounding when Caillean bent and wakened her.

 

"Come, now, I shall need you; stir up the fire, and make Mairi a cup of berry-leaf tea. I don't know how long this will take, and I will want your help."

 

When the tea was ready, Caillean bent over Mairi, who was moving restlessly, and held the cup to her lips. "There, sip this now. It will make you feel stronger."

 

But in a few moments Mairi shook her head, her face growing red and contorted.

 

"It will not be long, my dear," said Caillean encouragingly. "Do not try to sit upright now."

 

As Mairi slumped, gasping, after the contraction, Caillean said, low and quick, "Eilan, sponge her face, while I make all ready." She moved to the fire, and spoke to Mairi once more. "See, I have a fine swaddling ready for the little one, and it will not be long now till you hold her. Or do you think it will be another fine son like the one you have already?"

 

"I do not care," Mairi groaned, breathing hard. "I only want — it over - ahh - will it be long now - ?"

 

"Of course not. Just a little while, Mairi, and you will have your child in your arms . . .ah, that's right, just a little more . . .One begins just as another ends; I know it's hard, but it means your babe will be here all the sooner —"

 

Eilan felt almost rigid with fright. Mairi did not even look like herself any more. Her face was red and swollen, she cried out and seemed not even to know she was doing it. Then she gasped, arching her back and bracing her feet against the end of the bed.

 

"I can't — oh, I can't," came the hoarse cry, but Caillean was still crooning encouragement. It seemed to Eilan that the birthing had lasted a lifetime, but the sun was barely set.

 

Then Caillean's voice changed. "Now I think we are ready. Let her hold your hands, Eilan; no, not like that - at the wrists. Now, Mairi, push just once more. I know you are tired, child, but this will soon be over. Breathe — that's right, breathe hard, just let it come. There, there, now look!" Mairi's body heaved, and the priestess straightened, holding something, unbelievably red and tiny, that jerked in her hands with a thin cry. "Look, Mairi, you have a fine little daughter."

 

Mairi's red face relaxed in a blissful smile as Caillean laid the newborn child upon her belly.

 

"Ah, Lady," breathed the priestess, looking down at them. "More times than I can remember I have seen this, and always it is a miracle!" The thin mewing became a shrill and demanding cry, and Mairi laughed.

 

"Oh, Caillean, she's so beautiful, so beautiful. . ."

 

With swift efficiency the priestess tied off the birthcord and cleansed the child. When Mairi began to deliver the afterbirth, Caillean handed the baby to Eilan.

 

It seemed impossible that anything so fragile should be a human child; its fingers and feet were thin and spidery, its head covered with a downy dark fuzz. As Mairi fell into an exhausted sleep, Caillean hung a small metal amulet around the infant's neck, and began to cocoon it in swaddling bands.

 

"Now she cannot be stolen by the elf-kind, and we have watched her every moment since she was born, so we know she is no changeling," Caillean said. "But not even the Good Folk would be likely to come out into this rain. So you see, even from such a flood some good can come."

 

Caillean straightened her weary back, realizing that a red watery sun was beginning to peer through the heavy low-lying clouds for the first time in many days.

 

The baby was long and frail. Her hair turned to a downy reddish fuzz as it dried.

 

"She looks so delicate- will she live?" Eilan asked.

 

"I see no reason she should not," Caillean replied. "It is a mercy of the gods we did not leave here last night. I thought it might be safer to take refuge in the Forest House after all; and then this babe would have been born beneath some tree or in an open field, and we might well have lost both mother and child. My foresight is not always true."

 

The priestess sat down heavily on a bench before the fire. "Why, it is day again; no wonder I am weary. And no doubt before long, the boy will wake and we can show him his little sister."

 

Eilan was still holding the baby, but as Caillean looked up at her a veil seemed to fall between them, like a breath of cold mist from the Otherworld. As it swirled, a dreadful sorrow chilled Caillean's bones; suddenly she was seeing an Eilan who was older, in the blue robe of the Forest House, with the blue tattooed crescent of a sworn priestess between her brows. In her arms she held a young child; and in her eyes Caillean saw a grief so great it tore her heart.

 

Caillean shuddered, shaken by that flood of sorrow, and tried to blink the tears away. When she looked again, the young girl was staring at her in amazement. Involuntarily the priestess took a step forward and snatched Mairi's child, who mewed softly and fell asleep again.

 

"What is the matter?" Eilan asked. "Why were you looking at me like that?"

 

"A draught," Caillean murmured. "It chilled us both." But they could both see that the rushlights burned unstirringly. My foresight is not always true, she told herself. Not always . . .

 

She shook her head. "Let us hope the streams are still impassable," she said. Even the thought of raiders was a welcome distraction after that vision.

 

"Why do you say that, Caillean? My father will certainly want to come as soon as he can, and my mother too, to see their new grandchild. And all the more so if, as you say, Mairi is widowed —"

 

Caillean started. "Did I say that? Well, surely the weather will do as it will; never did I hear that even for the will of the High Druid we had more either of sun or rain. But I cannot help thinking that your kinsmen are not the only ones who can ride the roads. Come," she added, "The babe must go back to her mother's breast. She moved toward the box bed, the swaddled child in her arms.

 

 

 

Eight

 

 

 

Over the Roman camp at Deva rain continued to fall with maddening insistence. The men stayed in their barracks, dicing or repairing worn gear, or made their way to the wine shop to drink the afternoon away. In the midst of the all-encompassing wetness, Macellius Severus sent for his son.

 

"You are familiar with the country to the west," he began. "Do you think you could guide a party along the roads to Bendeigid Vran's household?"

 

Gaius stiffened, letting his oiled leather cape drip on to the tiled floor. "Yes, but, Father —"

 

Macellius guessed his meaning. "I am not suggesting that you should spy on a friend's household, my boy, but Hibernian raiders have been sighted off Segontium. Every British housestead in the region will be at risk if they slip by. It's for their own good, though I don't suppose they will see it that way. But if I must send a troop in to see what's happening, is it not better that it be led by a friend than by a Celt-hater, or some idiot fresh from Rome who thinks the Britons still go about painted blue?"

 

Gaius felt himself coloring. He hated the way his father could suddenly make him feel like a child.

 

"I am at your service, Father - and at Rome's," he added stiffly after a moment, feeling so cynical about the polite formula that he half-expected a sneer in response. How corrupt I am becoming, but at least I know when I am being a hypocrite. Will I be so accustomed to putting on that air of benign superiority by the time I am my father's age that I believe it?

 

"Or do you fear that your temper will run away with you because Bendeigid refused you his daughter's hand?" his father went on. "I told you how it would be."

 

Gaius felt his fists clench and bit his lip hard. He had never bested his father in a confrontation and knew he would have no chance now. Still, those words had been like salt on a raw wound.

 

"You told me, and you were right," Gaius said through his teeth. "Trot out whatever heifer you will - any girl with broad hips and good bloodlines, this Julia if you like - and I will do my duty."

 

"You are a Roman and I expect you to behave like one," Macellius said more gently. "You acted honorably, and you will continue to do so. In Juno's name, boy, the girl you loved may be in danger. Even though you can't marry her, don't you want to make sure she is safe and well?"

 

And to that, of course, he could make no answer at all, but he felt his stomach curdling with a dread that owed nothing to physical fear as he saluted and went out of the door.

 

Perhaps I am simply afraid to face them all, Gaius thought as his little troop of horsemen detached from the Auxilia trotted through the gate of the fortress and splashed down the hill. In a way I did betray their trust, and they were all kind to me. During the confusion of detailing the men and packing he had been able to suppress his feelings, but now the sick apprehension washed over him once more.

 

He had only seen Cynric once after leaving the house of Bendeigid . . .One day in the market town of Deva he had turned and recognized the blond young giant bartering for a sword at a smith's stall. Cynric was so deeply engaged in conversation with the weapons seller that he had not seen Gaius, and, in spite of his upbringing, Gaius had turned on his heel and fled. It was just after he had received his reply from Bendeigid. If the household knew of the offer Gaius would be shamed, and if not, what could Cynric, seeing the lad he had befriended wearing the uniform of a Roman tribune, presume but that they had been betrayed?

 

He wondered who had written the Druid's Latin response for him. Gaius had burned the wax tablets on which they were written, but the words remained engraved on his memory. They were simple enough. The Druid did not feel he could give his daughter in marriage, because of her youth and Gaius's Roman heritage.

 

Gaius had resolved to put the whole thing completely out of mind. After all, he was a Roman, trained to discipline both mind and body. But it was proving harder than he had expected. He could control his thoughts during the daytime, but last night he had dreamed once more that he and Eilan were sailing westward together on a white ship. Yet even if there were any land to the west where they might flee, he did not have the faintest idea how one would go about abducting even a willing girl, nor whether Eilan would be willing to run away. He had no intention of facing down all his kinsmen, to say nothing of hers. Nothing could come of that except misery for them both.

 

Perhaps Eilan was betrothed to somebody else by now, despite what her father had said about her youth. Certainly most Roman girls were married by that age. His father could go ahead, if he wished, and pledge him to whomever he willed. Licinius's daughter was young too, so perhaps he need not face it for a while. Better, Gaius thought, to stop thinking about women entirely. The gods knew he had tried. But now and again, seeing - perhaps in some Gaulish slave - a flash of fair hair and grey eyes, her image would return to him so vividly he wanted to cry.

 

He would have liked to learn from Cynric how the family fared. But by the time he had got up his courage again the young giant had vanished. And all things considered, it was probably just as well.

 

Eilan woke suddenly, blinking as she tried to remember where she was. Had the baby cried? Had she dreamed? But Mairi and the babe lay quiet in the bed box on the other side of the fire. As she moved, her nephew, Vran, turned in his sleep and nestled closer against her. The priestess, Caillean, lay still against the wall. Eilan, at the edge of the bed nearest the fire, had slept badly, restless. If she had been dreaming, she could not remember it; she knew only that she was awake and staring at the red coals where the fire had burned to embers.

 

In the dark Caillean said softly, "I heard it too. There is someone outside the house."

 

"At this hour?" She listened, but there was only the dripping of water from the eaves and the hiss of the fire.

 

But Caillean said with peremptory haste, "Be still." She slipped from the bed and silently tested the bar across the door. It was secure in its slot, but after a moment Eilan heard again the sound that had wakened her and saw it bow slightly as the door was pressed inward.

 

Eilan shivered. She had been weaned on tales of raiders, but had always lived in the great house of Bendeigid, protected by her father's armed men. The two serving men who helped with the farm work slept in the other roundhouse, and the homes of the other men oathed to Rhodri were scattered through the hills.

 

"Get up - quietly - and dress as swiftly as you can," whispered Caillean. The door shook again, and Eilan obeyed, trembling.

 

"My father always said to hide in the woods if raiders came —"

 

"That is no good to us now, with this rain, and Mairi still weak from childbirth," Caillean murmured. "Wait."

 

The door groaned as someone thrust more strongly, and Mairi woke, muttering. But Caillean, fully dressed now, had her hand over her lips. "Be silent, as you value your life and your child's," she whispered. Mairi subsided with a gasp, and the baby, luckily, slept on.

 

"Shall we hide in the storage pit?" Eilan whispered as the door shook again. Whoever was outside was determined to force his way in.

 

Caillean said softly, "Stay here, and whatever happens do not scream," and went to the door. Mairi cried out as Caillean began to lift the bar. The priestess said fiercely, "Do you want to put this door back together after they break it down? I do not."

 

As she drew back the bar, the door banged open. A dozen men burst through it as if blown by the wind and stopped short as Caillean cried out a single word that sounded like a command. They were big men with wild and untrimmed hair streaming over their shoulders, swathed in skins and hairy cloaks of heavy wool over tunics even more brightly checked than those the Britons wore. Caillean seemed slender as a willow wand before them. Her dark hair flowed to her waist over her ungirt blue robe, lifting a little as the wind blew through the door. It was the only thing about her that moved.

 

Mairi dived beneath the covers, clutching her child. One of the men laughed and said something just audible, and Eilan shuddered. She felt like following Mairi, but was too paralyzed to move.

 

Caillean cried out again in a ringing voice and took a step backwards to the hearth. The men seemed mesmerized by her gaze. They stood, staring, as she knelt and plunged her hands into the embers. Then suddenly she was rising, casting the coals at the intruders with both hands. She shouted again and the strange warriors gasped and recoiled; then they were gone, surging back over the doorsill, cursing in an odd sort of British and another tongue she did not know, knocking each other off their feet as they struggled to get away.

 

The priestess followed them to the door, laughing, and cried out something in a high voice, like the cry of a falcon. Then she slammed out the surging wind and all was still once more.

 

When they had gone, Caillean sank down on the settle by the hearth and Eilan, who was shaking to her very toenails, went to her. "Who were they?"

 

"Raiders, a mixed band, I think, from the North and from my country," Caillean said. "More shame to me, for I am a woman of Eriu, brought here by Lhiannon." She stood up and began to mop up the rain water that had come in.

 

Eilan quavered, "And what did you say?"

 

"I told them I was a bean-drui, a she-Druid, and if they laid a hand on me or on either of my sisters I would curse them by fire and water; and I showed them that I had that power." Caillean stretched out her hands. The slim fingers that Eilan had seen her thrust into the coals were white and unharmed. Was this all a dream?

 

Eilan, remembering what Caillean had cried out after them, said hesitatingly, "Sisters?"

 

"By the vows I have taken, all women are my sisters." Her lips twisted. "And I said if they went away and left us in peace I would lay a blessing on them —"

 

"And did you bless them then?"

 

"I did not; they are wild wolves of the forest, or worse," Caillean said defiantly. "Bless them? As soon bless a wolf and his teeth in my throat."

 

Eilan's gaze returned to Caillean's fingers. "How did you do that? Was that a Druid's illusion, or did you really take fire in your hands." Already she was beginning to wonder if her eyes had deceived her.

 

"Oh, that was real enough." Caillean gave a short laugh. "Anyone with my training could have done it."

 

Eilan stared at her. "Could I?"

 

"If you were taught, certainly," said Caillean with a trace of impatience. "If you had the trust, and the will. But I cannot show you now. Perhaps in the Forest House, if you come there."

 

The reality of what they had escaped burst over Eilan then and she dropped down upon the seat next to the priestess, shuddering. "They would . . .they would have -" Eilan swallowed. "We all owe you our lives."

 

"Oh, I think not," said Caillean. "A woman in childbed is small temptation even to such as these. And I might well have been able to frighten them from me; but you, yes; rape is the least you could have expected from them. They do not kill fair young girls; but you might well have ended a captive wife, if you so call it, on the shores of wild Eriu. If that is a fate that would have pleased you, I am sorry to have interfered."

 

Eilan shuddered, remembering the feral faces of the men. "I think not. Are the men all like that in your land?"

 

"I do not know. When I left it I was still very young." After a moment's silence Caillean went on. "I do not remember either my mother or my father, only that in the hut where we lived - all of us - there were seven children smaller than I. One day we went to the market and Lhiannon was there. I had never seen anyone so beautiful.

 

"And something - I know not what - reached out to her, for she cast her cloak over me, thus claiming me in the oldest of rites for the gods. Years later, I asked her why she had chosen me from all the others there. She said that she had seen that the others there were cleanly dressed and that their parents clung to them. There was no one to cling to me," she added somewhat bitterly. "In the home of my parents I was only another mouth to feed. Nor was my name Caillean; my mother — I do not really remember her — she called me Lon-dubh, Blackbird."

 

"Is Caillean a priestess name then?"

 

Caillean smiled. "It is not," she said. "Caillean, in our tongue, means only 'my child, my girl'. So Lhiannon called me whenever she spoke to me; I think of myself now by no other name."

 

"Should I call you that then?"

 

"You should, though I do have another name given me by the priestesses. I am sworn never to speak it aloud or even whisper it, save to another priestess."

 

"I see." Eilan stared at her, then blinked, because for a moment a name had echoed in her awareness as loudly as if it had been spoken. Isarma . . .when you were my sister, Isarma was your name . . .

 

Caillean sighed, "Well, dawn is still far off. See, your sister has already fallen back into slumber. Poor lass, the birth exhausted her. You should sleep as well —"

 

Eilan shook her head, trying to bring the world back into focus. "After such a disturbance, I do not think I could sleep even if I tried."

 

Caillean looked at her and suddenly laughed. "Well, to be truthful, neither can I! Those men terrified me so that I could scarce speak. I thought I had forgotten their dialect - the last time I heard it was so long ago."

 

"You did not look terrified," said Eilan. "You looked like a goddess standing there." She heard once more the other woman's bitter laugh.

 

"Things are not always as they seem, my little one. You must learn not to put all your trust in how folk look, or in what they say."

 

Eilan stared into the fire, whose embers, stirred back to life by Caillean's raking, snapped and sparkled on the hearth. The man she had learned to care for as Gawen had been an illusion, but even as Gaius the Roman, the thing that made her love him was the same. And he had spoken truth to her. I would know him, she thought then, if he came to me as a leper or a wild man. For a moment she grasped at something that lay beyond face or form or name. Then a coal snapped, and it was gone.

 

"Tell me what is true, then," Eilan said to fill the silence. "How did that cotter's child you say you were become a priestess who could hold fire in her hands?"

 

Tell me what is true . . .Caillean stared at the girl, who had lowered her fair lashes over those changeable eyes as if frightened by her own boldness. What other truths might come back to haunt her, as her mother tongue had returned on the lips of those monstrous men? She was twice Eilan's age — old enough to be her mother if she had married young, and yet at this moment the younger woman was like a sister, a twin soul.

 

"Did you come at once then to the Forest House with Lhiannon?" persisted Eilan.

 

"I did not; I think that Vernemeton was not yet built then," Caillean pulled herself together enough to answer her. "Lhiannon had come to Eriu to study with the bean-drui, the priestesses at the shrine of Brigid at Druim Cliadh. When she returned to Britain, we dwelt at first in a round tower on the shore far, far to the north of here. I remember that there was a ring of white stones laid around the tower, and it was death for any man, save only the Arch-Druid -not Ardanos, but the one who was before — to come within this ring of stones. Always, she treated me as her foster daughter; once she said, when someone asked, that she had found me abandoned on the seashore. It might as well have been true; I never saw any member of my family again."

 

"Didn't you miss your mother?"

 

Caillean hesitated, shaken by the flood of memories. "I suppose you had a good and a loving mother. Mine was otherwise. It is not that she was evil, but I cared little for her nor she for me." She stopped herself, eyeing the younger woman warily. What power is in you, girl, she thought, that you can conjure such memories from met She sighed, trying to find the right words.

 

"For her, I was only an extra mouth to feed. Once, years later in the market at Deva, I saw an old woman who reminded me of my mother. She was not, of course, but I did not even feel regret when I realized it. It was then that I knew I had no kinfolk but Lhiannon and, later, the other priestesses of the Forest House . . ."

 

There was a long silence. She could see Eilan trying to imagine what it would be like to grow up without a family. Caillean could see that Mairi's bossiness had held affection, and, from what Dieda had told her, she had been like Eilan's twin. And yet, she realized suddenly, just as she herself had never unburdened her heart to her fellow priestesses, never could Eilan have talked to any of her family as she was speaking with Caillean now.

 

It is like talking to myself, to say these things to her, Caillean thought ruefully, or perhaps it is like talking to the self I should have been, forever innocent and pure.

 

"The darkness and the fire glow here remind me of my earliest years," the priestess said at last, and as she spoke the dull light captured her vision and she was falling down the tunnel of the years, the words pouring out of her as if she were under some spell.

 

"All I truly recall of the hut is that it was dark and always smoky. It hurt my throat, so I was always running alone down to the seashore. Mostly I remember the crying of the seagulls; they were about the tower too, so that when I came here to the Forest House many seasons ago, for more than a year I could hardly sleep for being out of the sound of the sea. I loved the ocean. My memories of my . . .home . . ." she continued hesitantly, "are all of children, always a baby at my mother's breast, always the whimpering and squalling, and tugging at her skirts and at mine when I could not escape them. But even beatings could not keep me within the house to pound barley, or to be pulled around by the whimpering naked brats. It is surprising I can endure babes," she added, "but I have no dislike for such as Mairi's who come where they are much longed for and are well cared for once they are born.

 

"I must have had a father, but even when I was very small, I knew he did nothing for my mother except to make sure that there was always a new baby at the breast." She hesitated. "I dare say Lhiannon pitied me as a starveling."

 

Caillean heard her own words, surprised that they held no bitterness; as if she had accepted all this too long ago.

 

"So I do not even know how old I am, not really. It was about a year or so after Lhiannon took me away before my body showed the first signs of womanhood. I think I was about twelve then." She broke off suddenly, and Eilan looked at her in amazement.

 

I am a woman, a priestess, Caillean told herself, a sorceress who can frighten armed men! But the fire trance had taken her too far into memory, and she felt like a terrified child. Which was the truth? Or was the deception only in the flickering of the fire?

 

"I must be more shaken than I knew," she said in a stifled voice, "or perhaps it is the hour, and the darkness, as if we had stepped outside time." She looked at Eilan, forcing herself to honesty, "Or it may be because I am talking to you . . ."

 

Eilan swallowed, and steeled herself to meet the other woman's gaze. Truth . . .tell me the truth - Caillean heard the thought as if it had been her own, and could not tell which of them had a greater need for it.

 

"I never told Lhiannon, and the Goddess has not struck me down . . ." She felt the words dragged out of her. "But after all these years it seems to me that perhaps someone should know."

 

Eilan reached out to her, and Caillean's fingers closed hard on her hand.

 

"It was the sight and sound of those raiders that made me remember. In my old home there was a man I sometimes saw on the shore. He was, I suspect, one who lived there apart from other men, an outlaw driven from his clan. I would not wonder at that," she added bitterly. "At first I trusted him; he gave me small gifts, pretty things he had found on the shore, shells, bright feathers." She hesitated. "More fool I for thinking him harmless; but how would I have known better? Who had there ever been to teach me?"

 

She stared blindly towards the fire, but there had been no light in the hut, and no light could reach her now in this place of memory. "I suspected nothing, I never knew what he wanted when he dragged me into his hut one day —" She shuddered, racked by memories for which, even now, she had no words.

 

"What did you do?" Eilan's voice came from a great way off, like a distant star.

 

"What could I do?" Caillean said harshly, clinging to that little light. "I - I ran away, crying - crying till I thought I would melt, and filled with such horror and disgust - I can't speak of that. It seemed there was no one I could tell, no one who would have cared." She was silent for a long time. "To this day I remember the smell in his hut - filth, bracken, seaweed, and being pushed down on it while I whimpered — I was too young to imagine what he wanted. The smell of the sea and of bracken still makes me ill," she added.

 

"Didn't anyone ever know? Didn't they do anything?" asked Eilan. "I think my father would kill anyone who had touched me so."

 

Caillean had said it at last, and breathing was a little easier now. She let out some of the pain in a long, shuddering, sigh. "Wild as our tribe was, women could not be molested, nor a child so young. Had I accused my attacker, he would have come to the wicker cage and roasted in a slow fire. He knew it, when he threatened me. But I did not know it then." She spoke with a strange detachment now, as if it had all happened to someone else.

 

"It was about a year afterward that Lhiannon came. She would never have suspected that a girl so young could already be impure -and by the time I came to trust her and believe in her goodness, it was too late; I feared I should be sent away. So, after all, that divinity you thought you saw in me is all a lie," she said harshly. "If Lhiannon had known, I should never have been made priestess -but I made sure she never knew." She turned her face away. For a moment that seemed far too long, there was silence.

 

"Look at me -"

 

Caillean found her gaze drawn back to the child and saw Eilan's face, one side Goddess-bright and the other in shadow.

 

"I believe in you," said the girl gravely.

 

Caillean drew a shaken breath and Eilan's image was blurred by her tears.

 

"I live only because I believe that the Goddess forgives me as well," the priestess said. "I had already received my first initiation before I understood the enormity of my deception. But there were no evil omens. When they made me priestess I waited for a thunderbolt, but none came. I wondered then if perhaps there are no gods, or if there are, they care nothing for the doings of humankind."

 

"Or perhaps they are more merciful than men," said Eilan, then blinked as if amazed at her own temerity. It had never occurred to her to question the wisdom of men like her father and grandfather before. "Why did you leave your tower by the sea?" Eilan prompted after a time.

 

Caillean, lost in memory, started and said, "Because of the destruction of the shrine on Mona — you know that story?"

 

"My grandfather — he is a bard - has sung it. But surely that was before you were born —"

 

"Not quite," Caillean laughed. "But I was still a child. If Lhiannon had not been in Eriu, which you call Hibernia, at the time, she too would have died. For some years after that disaster the remaining Druids of Britain were too busy licking their wounds to take much thought for their priestesses. Then the Arch-Druid made some kind of treaty with the Romans that ensured sanctuary for the surviving sacred women within Roman lands."

 

"With the Romans!" Eilan exclaimed. "But it was the Romans who killed the others!"

 

"No, they only despoiled them," said Caillean bitterly. "The priestesses of Mona lived long enough to bear the bastards the Romans had begotten on them, then killed themselves. The children were fostered out to loyal families like your own."

 

"Cynric!" exclaimed Eilan with a look of sudden comprehension. "That is why he is so bitter about the Romans, and always wants to hear the story of Mona, though it happened so long ago. They always hushed me when I asked about it before!"

 

"Your Cynric the Roman-hater has exactly as much Roman blood as that boy your father refused to let you marry," said Caillean, laughing. But Eilan hugged her arms and stared into the fire.

 

"Don't you believe me?" asked the priestess. "It is all too true. Well, perhaps the Romans feel some guilt for what was done, but your grandfather is as wily a political animal as any Roman senator, and he bargained with Cerealis, who was Governor before Frontinus. At any rate the Forest House was built at Vernemeton to shelter women and priestesses from the whole of Britain. And at last Lhiannon became High Priestess and a place was made for me among them, mostly because they did not know what else to do with me. I have attended Lhiannon since I was a little child, but I am not to succeed her. That has been made clear to me."

 

"Why not?"

 

"At first I thought it was the will of the Goddess . . .because of what I told you. But now I believe that it is because the priests cannot trust me to obey. I love Lhiannon, but I see her clearly, and I know that she will bend with the wind. Perhaps the only time she ever defied the Council was when she insisted on keeping me. But I see through their plots and speak my mind, though not," she shook her head ruefully, "as I have spoken to you!"

 

Eilan returned her smile. "That must be true, for I cannot imagine saying even half the things I have heard this night in my father's hall."

 

"They would not dare let me speak with the voice of the Goddess - they would always be wondering what I was going to say!" Caillean found herself laughing again. "They will want someone more loyal. I thought for a time it was to be Dieda; but I overheard a bit of what Ardanos said when she was chosen. I believe that they had planned it should be you."

 

"You said something like this before, but I think my father means to arrange a marriage for me."

 

"Truly?" Caillean raised one eyebrow. "Well, perhaps I am wrong. I knew only that the son of the Prefect of the camp at Deva had asked for you."

 

"My father was so angry . . ." Eilan blushed, remembering the things he had said to her. "He said he would have Senara married off before she could cause him any trouble. I thought he meant the same for me. But he said nothing of sending me to Vernemeton. If I cannot be with Gaius," she added dully, "I do not suppose it matters what I do."

 

Caillean looked at her thoughtfully. "I have never been tempted to marry; I have been pledged to the Goddess for so long. Perhaps because of what happened to me when I was a child I never felt I wished to belong to any man. I suppose if I had been unhappy in the temple, Lhiannon would have tried to find a way to give me in marriage; she has always wanted to make me happy. I do love her," she added. "She has been more to me than a mother."

 

She hesitated. "It galls me to think of giving way to Ardanos's plans, but the Goddess may have had a hand in this as well. Would you like to come with me to Vernemeton when I return?"

 

"I believe that I would," Eilan replied, and a flicker of interest leaped in those odd, changeable eyes that sometimes looked dark hazel, and sometimes gray replacing the pain. "I cannot think anything else would please me so well. I never really believed they

 

would let me and Gaius be together. Long ago, before I met Gaius, I used to dream of being a priestess. This way, at least, I will have an honorable life and interesting things to learn."

 

"I think that could be arranged," Caillean said dryly. "No doubt Bendeigid will be delighted, and Ardanos as well. But Lhiannon is the one who must agree to it. Shall I speak to her?"

 

Eilan nodded, and this time it was the older woman who took her hand. At the touch of the girl's smooth skin Caillean felt the familiar dizziness of shifting vision, and saw Eilan grown older and even more beautiful, swathed in the Oracle's veils. "Sisters, and more than sisters . . ." Like an echo she heard the words.

 

"Don't be afraid, child. I think it may be . . ." she paused and finally said, "fated that you come among us." Her heart lifted suddenly. "And I need hardly say that I would welcome you there." She sighed as the vision left her, and heard, like an echo, a lark outside, giving greeting to the dawn. "Dawn is breaking." With an effort, Caillean made stiff muscles obey her and stumbled towards the door. "We have been talking all the night. I have not done that since I was younger than you." She opened the door, letting the rising sun flood into the room. "Well, at least the rain has stopped; we had better go and see if the byre survived the night - at least those wretches could hardly burn it in this rain - and if they have left us any cows, and anyone to milk them."

 

For the next four days Gaius slogged along at the head of the troop of Dacian auxiliaries whose sick decurion he was replacing, with Priscus, their optio, all of them cursing the mud and the damp that seemed to creep through every opening despite the capes of oiled leather, rusting armor and chafing wherever wet leather touched skin. The woodlands dripped steadily and the fields lay sodden to either side, pools of standing water rotting the roots of the young corn. Summer's end would bring a poor harvest, he thought grimly. They would need to bring in grain from parts of the Empire where the gods had been kinder. It was no wonder the raiders were roaming if the weather had been the same in Hibernia.

 

Despite the slow going, by the middle of the fifth day they were well into the country of his adventure. They spent that night at the home of Clotinus. The next day they passed the very boar pit into which he had fallen and turned down the track that led to the household of Bendeigid. The rain was letting up at last, and westward between the banks of breaking clouds the sky glowed gold.

 

Gaius felt his pulse quicken as he recognized the home pasture and the wood in which he had hunted for primroses with Eilan. Soon she would see him, clothed in the majesty, however mud-spattered, of Rome. He would say nothing; she could judge the depth of his suffering from his silence. And then, perhaps, she would seek him out, and -

 

"Gods below! Are those more stormclouds?" It was the optio, Priscus, behind him. "I hoped we'd have a day at least to get dry!"

 

Gaius focused on the outside world and saw that though the sky to the south was clearing, the clouds ahead were an ominous dark gray. His horse tossed its head nervously and a little prickle of apprehension roughened his skin.

 

"Not ramclouds," said one of the Dacians. "Smoke . . ."

 

At that moment the rising wind brought him the reek of smoldering timbers. All the horses were snorting now, but they had smelled fire before, and the men kept them under control.

 

"Priscus, dismount and take two scouts through the woods to see," said Gaius, a little amazed at the cold precision of his tone. Was it training that kept him from spurring his horse forward, or was he simply numbed into inaction by the thought of what he might see? It seemed only a few moments before the scouts returned.

 

"Raiders, sir," said the optio, his seamed face set like stone. "The Hibernians we heard about, I would guess. But they're gone now."

 

"Any survivors?"

 

Priscus shrugged and Gaius felt his throat close.

 

"Warm welcome here, but no place to sleep, eh? Guess we ride on," said one of the men, and the others laughed. Then Gaius turned, and his face silenced them. He dug his heels into his mount's sides and in silence the troop followed him.

 

It was true. Even as they came around the edge of the wood to the rise on which Bendeigid's steading had been, Gaius had been hoping that Priscus was mistaken somehow. But it was all gone -only a few blackened timbers at the ends of what had been the feasting hall still stood in mute memorial. No sign of the building where he had convalesced, and no sign of life. Thatched buildings burned fast.