The Forest House Read online

"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 priest
ess 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."