The Forest House

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  "Oh?" Gaius asked politely, though he did not really care that much whether the man had served in Egypt or at the end of the world. This was the gate through which they had entered the festival grounds three years ago. He remembered how little Senara had jigged down the road ahead of them, laughing.

  As before, he was wearing native clothing, for his assignment was to watch out for sedition at the festival, but that happy family with whom he had last come this way was no more. "What was Egypt like?" he said quickly, trying to wall the memory away.

  "Oh, like everywhere else," the centurion said and yawned. "Great temples and dreadfully rich kings, and equally great poverty in the marketplace. It was warm though," he added and shivered. "I wouldn't mind a little of their sun right now; it's too cold and rainy here in Britannia."

  Gaius looked up at the overcast sky. The man was right; he had not noticed the weather before. That was one thing that was different anyway. He did not think he could have borne to see this place again on a day of bright sun.

  "You don't seem to mind it much, though," the centurion added enviously. "You were born here, weren't you? I'm from Etruria myself. Getting to be a rarity, these days, to find another native-born Latin in the Legions. I've served all over the Empire — Egypt, Hispania, Parthia. My cohort got cut to pieces in Parthia, and when they promoted me to centurion - probably because I was one of the few left alive — they sent me out here. If Apollo really discovered this country, I don't admire his taste."

  "We'll dismount here," Gaius nerved himself up to it suddenly. "And leave a man with the horses. No room for them inside."

  They heard lowing behind them as another contingent of cattle was driven in. The centurion bawled a command to the soldiers to move aside, and he and Gaius stepped back.

  "No sense in getting under their hoofs," he added lazily. "I don't know about you, but I've better uses for my feet than having 'em stepped on by these cows. You ready to go in now?"

  Gaius sighed. He would never be ready, but he was a Roman, and he could no longer run from his memories. He shivered and drew a fold of his mantle over his head.

  "What's going on here anyway?" asked the centurion as they passed through the gateway in the wake of the cattle. "Is it some kind of festival for the farmers? They did that in Egypt - had a big white bull they called a god. Paraded him through the streets with garlands around his neck, and fanned incense over the cattle till you could hardly breathe. Trying to make them healthy, they said."

  "Here, they throw herbs on the flames and drive the cows between the fires to bless them." Gaius answered him.

  "Funny thing, how people keep fighting about religion, when really it's all the same. Seems to me it's the priests who make all the problems; most folks just want good harvests and healthy babies, just trying to get along. If it's not the cattle stampeding, it's the priests haranguing the crowds. Do the Druids run this festival?"

  "Not exactly," said Gaius. "There's a priestess, something like a Vestal, who calls down blessings from their gods." For a moment he closed his eyes, once more seeing that veiled figure lifting her arms to the moon.

  "Is she going to do the sacrifices?" They moved slowly towards the central square, for the herd of cattle was still ahead of them, lowing anxiously and pressing together at the strange sights and smells.

  Gaius shook his head. "These days, anyway, the Druids or whoever runs their worship don't sacrifice anything except fruit and flowers."

  "I heard they did lots of sacrifices—even human," said the centurion.

  "Gates of Tartarus, no." Gaius remembered how indignant Eilan had been when he asked the same question. "Really, this festival's pretty tame. I was here once, and —"

  "Oh, by Caligula's balls! Somebody's scared the cows," the centurion exclaimed, peering ahead of them. "That was what I was afraid of."

  A big man in a checked robe had upset a lantern, and the cows were shifting about, lowing uneasily.

  Beyond him an older man was haranguing the crowd. More than a hundred people had gathered to hear. Gaius edged forward to listen. This was why he was here, in case someone used the peaceful gathering to stir up rebellion. People in the crowd were yelling in agreement, ignoring the growing unease in the herd.

  A lad came running with a bucket of water, splashing one of the shouters as he went by. The man turned, yelling, and the nearest cow threw up its head with a bellow, pricking its neighbor with a twisted horn.

  "Oh, Hades, that's done it; those cows are going to stampede," Gaius shouted, even as one of the lead cows burst into a clumsy gallop, knocking into her drover and sending him head over heels into the crowd.

  The speaker was still haranguing the crowd, but his audience were shouting at each other now. Two or three men were crowded off their feet, and a woman screamed, and then the whole front line of cattle burst into a lumbering run. A cow bellowed, swerving, and Gaius saw red on its horn. Somebody screamed. Men, women, and a few children surged backward, yelling.

  Now everyone was pushing, trying to get out of the way. Within moments the central square was a confusion of motion and sound. Mothers reached for their crying children; one of the legionaries, not accustomed to cattle, was pushed off his feet and went down howling. Gaius struggled to keep his feet and was swept away from his men.

  Someone grabbed at his arm. "Here, you look strong, you must help me; the Lady will fall." A tall, dark-haired woman in a blue robe gripped Gaius's arm and pulled him towards the edge of the square where an old woman swathed in a blue cloak had collapsed against two women in linen dresses with wreaths of green leaves over their unbleached linen veils.

  Gaius reached out cautiously and the women let their burden sag into his arms. He blinked, recognizing the Priestess who had invoked the Goddess two years before. Carefully he lifted her, amazed at the fragility of the form within the heavy robes. Most of the people had fled, but cattle were still bucketing about angrily, or drifting in twos or threes with lowered horns and switching tails, lowing defiance at anyone who tried to herd them.

  Near by lay the still form of the giant who accompanied the Priestess everywhere. "What's the matter with him?"

  "Huw? Oh, he's all right," the older priestess said carelessly. "One of the cows gored somebody; he's afraid of the sight of blood."

  Some bodyguard, Gaius could not help thinking. "We've got to get her out of the way of the cows," he said aloud. "Where shall I carry her?"

  "This way." The taller of the two attending priestesses quickly led the way through the tumble of wrecked booths. Gaius settled his burden so that her head rested against his shoulder, relieved to hear the rasp of her breathing. He did not want to think what would happen to him if the High Priestess of Vernemeton died in his arms.

  His nostrils flared at a sudden scent and he realized that the priestess had led them to the booth of a herb seller. The herbalist, plump and worried, was lifting the hanging rug aside so that Gaius could carry the High Priestess in. He knelt and laid her on the piled sleeping furs.

  The place was dim and dusty, pungent with the fresh summery smell of the herbs suspended from the beams or shelved in linen bags. Gaius straightened, and his cloak fell back. From behind him came a sudden cry of surprise. Gaius felt his heart begin to thud heavily in his breast. Slowly, for suddenly he needed more courage than it had taken to face a charge of Caledonian tribesmen, he turned.

  The smaller of the attending priestesses had thrown back her veil. From its shadowy folds he saw Eilan staring back at him. He felt the blood leaving his head; the world darkened, then flared into brightness as he got his breath again. You're dead . . . he thought. You died in the fire! But even when all other vision failed, shining down at him he saw Eilan's eyes. He felt a breath of air on his face and gradually his senses came back to him.

  "Is it really you?" he croaked then. "I thought you had burned . . . I saw what was left of your house after the raiders came."

  She stepped backward, motioning him towards the end of the booth
, while the other priestesses bent over Lhiannon, and Gaius, his head still reeling, got up and followed her.

  "I was away helping my older sister with her new child," she said quietly so they would not be overheard. "But my mother and little Senara were there." Her voice broke. Then she stopped and sent a quick guilty glance at the other priestesses.

  In the dim light, wrapped in pale robes, she looked like a spirit. He reached out to her. He could hardly believe she was there, alive, unharmed. For a moment his fingers brushed cool linen, then she twitched away.

  "We cannot talk here," she said breathlessly, "even though you are not in uniform."

  "Eilan," he said quickly, "when can I see you?"

  "That is not possible," she said. "I am a priestess of the Forest House, and not allowed —"

  "You are not allowed to speak to a man?" A Vestal, he thought. The girl I love is as forbidden to me as if she were a Vestal.

  "It is not so bad as that -" she said with a faint smile. "But you are a Roman, and you know what my father would say."

  "Indeed I do," he said after a moment, and then thought of what his father would say. Had the Prefect let Gaius grieve, knowing there was no need? Along with his wonder at her presence came a surge of anger.

  Looking into Eilan's hazel eyes, he realized suddenly that in all the time since he had left the house of Bendeigid, he had not felt so alive.

  She shifted uneasily. "Dieda is looking at us; she may well recognize you. And Caillean, the older priestess —"

  "I remember Dieda," he said harshly. "And I must get back to my centurion. Gods! I am glad to see you alive," he said, suddenly and intensely, but he did not move. The other priestesses were both looking at them now, and she raised her hand in a gesture of blessing.

  "I thank you," she said in a voice that shook only a little. "Lhiannon is too heavy for any of us to lift. If you see Huw and he seems recovered, will you send him to us here?"

  "To keep him safe from the cows," he said, and was rewarded by the sudden flicker of her smile.

  "Go now."

  "I must," he agreed. At that moment Lhiannon stirred; one of the women bent over and spoke soothingly to her, and hearing those low tones, it finally reached him that Eilan was a priestess of the Druids now.

  He stumbled towards the entrance, and it was only when he was outside, blinking in the light, that he realized that he had not said goodbye or wished her well. Was she happy in the Forest House? Had she chosen that life, or had they forced her into it? But the door flap had fallen closed behind him. As he strode away, he heard Dieda's voice behind him.

  "Eilan, what were you saying to that man? He walks like a Roman!"

  "Oh, I don't think so," he heard Eilan say slowly. "Wouldn't he have been in uniform? The rest of them all were."

  He slowed, amazed at her guile. It was at least partly her innocence that had at first attracted him.

  Now where the devil had his centurion got to? He forced himself into motion again. Was the man likely to tell Macellius about this? And, more important, how would Gaius manage to see Eilan again? Now that he had found her once more, he could not simply let her go.

  Behind him in the tent, Eilan clasped her hands over her pounding heart. It seemed almost impossible that the other priestesses could not hear it.

  Lhiannon stirred, and murmured, "What happened? Was anyone hurt?"

  "Some fool frightened the cattle and they stampeded," Caillean answered.

  "How . . .how did I get here?"

  "A passer-by carried you. Huw fainted - the great halfwit," Caillean said crisply. "No, your rescuer is gone; Eilan blessed him in your name."

  Eilan, hearing, thought it lucky Gaius had not been wearing Roman uniform and wondered why. She wondered what he would look like in the uniform of the Legions. Handsome, she imagined, but then, he was nice-looking anyhow. She shook her head, knowing that she should not be thinking of him that way, certainly not here. That part of her life was over.

  "First make certain that Huw is all right, then bring him in here." Lhiannon ordered. "If the cattle have stampeded, they probably cannot be rounded up at once, and we will be here for the rest of the day."

  Eilan went out into the sunlight. She found Huw sitting on the ground, barely conscious, shaking his head dizzily.

  "Is the Holy Lady safe?"

  "No thanks to you, if she is," Eilan said crossly. "She fainted, and a passer-by carried her into the herb seller's booth."

  "Where's all the cattle?"

  Eilan looked around her and realized that Lhiannon had been wrong. The square was busy with folk setting up fallen booths and chattering, but there was not a cow to be seen.

  "Only the gods know that, and maybe their drovers; they stampeded." The man who had been gored, she noticed, had been carried away by his friends. "That's why they gored that man; they were frightened," she said crisply.

  "It was the Romans frightened them," Huw mumbled, getting painfully to his feet again. "Marching in all clanking and glittering that way. A murrain on them; why did they come here anyway? Did they think the blessing of the cattle was some kind of unlawful gathering?"

  "There'll be no blessing of the cattle this day," he went on, shaking his head, "I'd best carry the Lady home. With Romans around there's more likely than not to be some kind of trouble," he added in a grumbling undertone.

  Not for the first time, Eilan wondered why Lhiannon tolerated this great oaf. He was little use to her as a bodyguard; Eilan could not see that he was any use at all. If she should be ever in the position of the Oracle priestess - little as she desired it - the first thing she would do would be to rid herself of the services of this great bobby.

  About a month after Beltane, Eilan was summoned to Lhiannon, and found her with a man who reminded her oddly of Cynric, and a little girl of eight or ten years with light reddish hair sun-touched with gold.

  Eilan smiled at the child, who returned her gaze bashfully. Lhiannon said, "Hadron is one of the Raven Brotherhood. Tell her your story yourself, Hadron."

  "It is soon told," the man said. "I have a foster brother who-has joined the Legions as an auxiliary, and he interceded for me or I would have been taken and sent to the lead mines. After his intercession, the penalty was removed and my life spared, and so I was given only ten years of exile from any Roman possession. I must now flee to the North, and I cannot take a girl child with me where I go."

  "So what is the problem?" Eilan knew Lhiannon had the authority simply to take the girl into the Forest House without consulting anyone. The fact that she had not already done so meant that there was some difficulty.

  "She seems to me to be too young for a place among us," Lhiannon said, frowning. "I do not know what to say to him."

  "If that is all," Eilan replied, "I should be happy to care for her until she can be sent to fosterage elsewhere. Or is there a female relative to whom she might be consigned?"

  "There is not," said the man. "For my wife was Roman born, and I know very little of her near kinfolk."

  "So your child is partly Roman? Cannot you send her to her kin among them?" Lhiannon asked."

  The man answered sullenly, "My wife quarreled with her kindred to marry me; she begged me with her dying breath to make certain her daughter never fell into their hands. I thought if I might leave her in the care of the priestesses . . ."

  Lhiannon said sternly, "We are not a refuge for orphans. Although for one of the Brotherhood of the Ravens we might possibly make an exception."

  Eilan looked at the child and thought of her own little sister, dead at the hands of raiders three years ago now. If Senara were alive, who was looking after her? She had looked forward to tending Miellyn's baby as a kind of substitute for her lost sister, but the older woman had miscarried the Year-King's child.

  "I would willingly care for her, Lhiannon."

  "That is why I called you. You are not yet committed to any very exacting duties here among us," Lhiannon replied. "Although this goes beyond the u
sual requirements. Still, if you will have it so, I will put this little refugee in your charge." She paused and asked Hadron, "What is her name?"

  "My wife called her Valeria, My Lady."

  Lhiannon scowled. "That is a Roman name; she cannot be called by it here."

  "My wife had given up all her kin to marry me," said Hadron. "The least I could do was allow her to give her family name to her child."

  "Even so, she must have a new name if she is to live here among us," Lhiannon said firmly. "Eilan, will you give her one?"