The Forest House (26 page)

"Eilan —" he stammered, for Caillean was watching as well. "You know what I would say to you . . ."

He held out his hand, not daring to touch her, and then, as Caillean coughed, turned it to a formal salute of farewell. But he read Eilan's answer in her smile.

When he had withdrawn, Eilan ran to Caillean.

"So that is the Roman who has had you daydreaming to the point where you can hardly be trusted to stuff a mattress with bracken. I cannot understand it; he does not seem in any way special to me."

"Well, I did not suppose that you would particularly like him," Eilan protested, "but he is well favored, is he not?"

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"I cannot see that he is any more so than any other Roman," Caillean remarked. "Or for that matter any other man. To me your foster brother Cynric is much better looking. He has a gentler face and does not appear to think the world must revolve about his comings and goings."

Eilan supposed there was no accounting for taste; she herself did not think Cynric was particularly attractive, but Dieda certainly did. But Gaius was something different; to her he did not seem typically Roman, not in any way. Nor did Gaius himself appear to think of his Roman lineage as anything very special.
Certainly he could not if he was for a time thinking of abandoning it for marriage with
me,
she told herself then.

She had never for an instant considered marrying anyone else; and as for men, the world was full of them. She hardly realized how much thinking of Gaius had come between her old life and what now seemed natural to her.

"Eilan, you are daydreaming again," Caillean remarked sharply. "Go and find Senara and tell her what you have discovered; and then go to Latis for your lesson. If you can manage to pay attention, some day you may be as skilled in the lore of herbs as Miellyn."

Thus admonished, Eilan went about her duties; but she could not resist going obsessively over and over every word she had said to Gaius and every word he had said to her. She could not believe she would never see or speak with him again; he seemed too much a part of her life even after their formal goodbye.

That night when she went in her turn to wait upon Lhiannon, the older woman looked at her with dismay.

"What is this I have heard? That you have been out of the temple to meet with a man? This is not the behavior expected of a priestess of the Forest House. I am disappointed in you," she chided.

Eilan colored angrily. But this was why she had asked Caillean to witness their meeting, after all. "I said not one word to him that could not have been spoken in the presence of all of you."

Lhiannon sighed. "I did not say you did, but the fact of the matter is that it was not spoken in the presence of all of us, and

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there will be talk. The Goddess be thanked, Caillean was there; but she should have known that we cannot afford to have even the suspicion of scandal, so it is she and not you who will be punished for it.

But I beseech you before you do anything of this kind again, think that you have brought punishment down on the head of another. You are young, Eilan, and the young are always thoughtless."

"Punished? But that is not fair! What will you do to her?" Eilan asked apprehensively.

"I will not beat her, if that is what you are thinking," Lhiannon said smiling. "Even when she was a small child, I never beat her; perhaps I should have done. As for her punishment, that is for her to tell if she wishes."

"But, Mother," Eilan protested, "it was you who told me to find out if the child had any family."

"I did not say that you should inquire among the Romans," Lhiannon said irritably. Eilan wondered how in the world she could have been expected to find out about the relatives of a Roman child in any other way.

Later, among the priestesses, Eilan found an opportunity to speak to Caillean. "Lhiannon told me she had to punish you. Can you forgive me? Will it be too bad? She said she would not beat you."

"She will not," Caillean said. "There is a house in the forest where she will probably send me to spend time meditating on my sins while I clear away the brushwood and weeds with which it is surrounded and put the place in order. It's not much of a punishment; Lhiannon probably does not realize that it is actually a luxury to me to be alone with my music and my thoughts. So you must not think I am being ill treated."

"Alone in the forest? But won't you be frightened?"

"What should frighten me? Bears? Wolves? Wandering men? The last bears in this part of the world were trapped over thirty years ago. How long is it since you have seen so much as a wolfskin rug in the market? And as for men, you have good cause to know that I could frighten away any man alive. No, I am not afraid."

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"I should be terrified," Eilan said somberly.

"I am sure of it; but I am not afraid of my own company. And I can think of my music as much as I wish, without a lesson or a duty interfering. So I shall be quite content," Caillean assured her. "There is nothing in this punishment - if she will call it so - to trouble me."

Eilan said no more, and she knew that at least when it came to waiting upon Lhiannon, she and Dieda would willingly share Caillean's duties between them. Well, that was no hardship; she loved Lhiannon in spite of her flaws, and she knew that her kinswoman loved her too. She would miss Caillean, though.

Now it occurred to her that if Lhiannon had been a different type of person she herself might have been beaten or severely punished. Whatever Caillean made of this penalty, it was Eilan who had brought it upon the older woman. For that she felt guilty, but not enough to regret her meeting with Gaius. She only wished she had been able to say half of what she wanted to, though what that was she could not have named.

When Caillean departed from the Forest House, Eilan realized that the older woman was really not much of a favorite with the other women there. Only Miellyn and Eilidh seemed to be truly her friends — and of course Lhiannon.

The weather changed as summer moved towards autumn. As the equinox approached there was rain, and late one evening, while the women in the House of Maidens were seated around the fire, Eilan found herself thinking of Caillean in her exile. Was the roof of the hut leaky? How did she react to the solitude and the silence of the forest?

The women had been inventing riddles, and at last, tired of this pastime, they asked Dieda to sing or to tell them a story.

Dieda acquiesced. "What would you like me to tell you?"

"Tell us a tale of the Otherworld," said Miellyn. "Tell us how Bran son of Febal voyaged to the western land. All the bards learn that one."

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And so Dieda half told, half chanted, the tale of Bran and his encounter with the sea god Manannan, Lord of Illusion, who turned the sea into a flowering grove of trees, the fish into birds flying in the air, the waves into flowering bushes, and the sea creatures into sheep; so it seemed as if they sailed through a flowering grove. And when Manannan fell out of the boat, the waves rushed in, so that the sea god was cast upon the shore and all the other men drowned.

When she had finished they called for another tale, like little children sitting spellbound.

"Tell the story of the King and the Three Hags," suggested one of the women, and Dieda began as all tales were begun.

"A long time ago, times were better than now, and there were more gates between the Otherworld and this, and if I had been there, I should not now be here . . .well then, in a longer time ago than the oldest grandfather can tell, in a house on the borders of the Underworld, there lived a king and his queen . . .

"And it was on the eve of Samaine, when the gates between the world are open, and at the time between times, between the midnight of one year and the dawn of the next, there came to the door three hags. The first had a snout like a pig, and her lower lip hung down to her knees and concealed her garment; the second had lips both on one side of her head and a beard which hung down concealing her breasts; and the third was a hideous creature with one arm and one leg. Under her arm she carried a pig which was so much better looking than she was that it was as if the pig were a princess."

By this time all the women were laughing. Dieda herself smiled a little and went on. "The three hags came in and took three seats by the fire so that there were no seats by the fire for the King and his queen, who were forced to take seats by the door.

"Then the first of them, the one with the long lower lip, said, 'I am hungry; what have you to eat?' And they hastened to make her a pot of porridge; and she ate up the pot of porridge, and it was enough for a dozen men, and she cried out, 'You are stingy; I hunger still.'

"Now on this night no request of a guest can be denied; and so the Queen set herself and her serving maids to make more porridge for her guests and put some oatcakes on the hearth to bake. But no matter how much food they set before the guest, she growled, 'I am still hungry.'

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"Then the second, the bearded one, complained, 'I am thirsty.' When they brought out a barrel of beer, she drank it all down at one draft and complained that she was still dry. And when they began to fear that the hags would eat all the provision for the winter to come, the Queen and the King went out and consulted together what they should do with their guests. And then one of the fairy folk appeared to them from out of a mound and gave the Queen good-day.

" 'All the gods preserve you, good lady; why are you weeping?' And the Queen told them of the three hideous hags and their fear that the creatures meant to eat them out of house and home, and then to eat the King and the Queen. And the Fairy Woman told her what she should do.

"So the Queen went in and sat down to her knitting; and finally the first hag asked, 'What are you making, Granny?'

"And the Queen replied, 'Knitting a shroud, dear Aunty.'

"And the second hag asked through her beard. 'Who is the shroud for, Granny?'

" 'Oh, for anyone I can find who is homeless this night, dear Aunty.'

"And after a while the third asked, kissing her pig, 'And when will you be using the shroud, Granny?'

"And just then the King rushed in and cried out, 'The black mountain and the sky over it are all on fire!'

"And when they heard that, the three hags cried out, 'Alas, alas, our father is gone,' and rushed out of the door, and they were never seen again in that country by any living man; or if they were, then I have not heard of it."

Dieda fell silent. After a long pause, while the wind wailed loudly around the building, Miellyn said, "I heard Caillean tell a story very like that, long ago; did you learn it from her?"

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"I did not," said Dieda. "I heard my father tell it once when I was a very small girl."

"I suppose it is very old," said Miellyn, "and of course he is one of the greatest bards. But you told it as well as any Druid. You or Caillean could head the College as well as he."

"Oh, no doubt," Dieda scoffed. "And why not make us judges as well?"

Why not, indeed?Eilan wondered. Caillean would have had an answer to that, but Caillean was not here.

Thirteen

Once Gaius had reassured Valerius that his kinswoman was safe in Eilan's care in the Forest House, he made plans to leave again before his father could begin nagging him again about marriage. Since seeing Eilan, he was even more determined not to be married off to some Roman girl. Ever since the death of the Emperor Titus and the accession of Domitian everything had been unsettled, and Gaius knew that his father was looking about for alliances.

After a time he went out into the town. The morning had been warm and muggy, but now great clouds were building in the west, and he felt his hair ruffled by a cool wind. An old centurion had told him once that in this country there were two ways to tell the weather: if you could see the hills, it was about to rain; if not, it was already raining. The man had sighed then, homesick for the flat blue skies of Italia, but Gaius took a grateful breath of the damp wind. As the first drop of rain fell, the Romans began to scurry for shelter. But there was one man who stood still, as he did, turning his face to the sky.

Without much surprise, Gaius recognized Cynric.

"Join me for a cup of wine?" He gestured towards the wine shop where they had met before.

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Cynric shook his head. "Thank you; I think I had better not. I'd rather that you could say that you haven't seen me. As a matter of fact it would be much better for you if you could say that you don't know too much about my comings and goings. That way I won't have to ask you to lie."

Gaius lifted one eyebrow. "Are you joking?"

"I wish I were. I shouldn't even stand about talking to you like this; though you can honestly say you encountered me by chance."

"Don't worry," said Gaius, looking around him. A gust of wind sent raindrops spattering across the road, sending up little puffs of dust as they fell. "All the good Romans are safe under cover, and won't care about two fools standing out in the rain! Listen, Cynric, I need to talk to you about Eilan . . ."

Cynric grimaced. "I beg of you, don't speak of that. That was quite the biggest mistake I've made this year; Lhiannon was furious with me. No real harm was done, but don't try to see my foster sister again."

He looked nervously around him. "Even if you can afford it, I should not be seen talking to an officer of the Legions in full uniform. In fact, you'd better pretend you don't know me if we meet by accident again."

He added, "I won't be offended. Somebody finally figured out that I was still working for the Ravens, and it occurred to them that serving with the auxiliaries put me in a prime position to make trouble when the time comes. So they've proscribed me, and if I'm spotted within twenty miles of the Roman town, I could be sentenced to the mines - or to something worse - if there is anything worse. Farewell!" Cynric turned away.

Gaius blinked, realizing suddenly that Cynric no longer wore the insignia of Rome. .That must be why he was willing to speak so plainly. He was still trying to think of something to say as his friend slid into a side street and disappeared, leaving him alone with the rain. Gaius checked the impulse to follow him. If Cynric were truly an enemy of Rome, even a quick death would be better than sending him to the Mendip lead mines.