Sometimes it seemed to Caillean that what they retained at the Forest House was only the dregs of greatness. Most of the other women were content with their small magic, but from time to time Caillean would feel an odd conviction that there must be more. She had spoken truth to Lhiannon – she did not want to be Priestess of the Oracle. And yet if not that, what was it that she wanted to do?
“It is time for our morning devotions,” Lhiannon’s voice pierced her distraction. The older woman gripped the table and pushed herself upright.
And Goddess forbid that we should fail to perform even the slightest step in the ritual! thought Caillean as she helped the High Priestess to move out to the garden and settle herself before the plain stone altar there. But as Caillean lit the lamp set on its top and brought the flowers to lay before it, she found a measure of peace returning to her soul.
“Behold, Thou art come with the dawning adorned with flowers,” Lhiannon said softly, lifting her hands in salutation.
“Thy radiance blazes in the strengthening sun and in the holy fire,” Caillean replied.
“In the east arising, Thou art come to bring new life to the world.” The voice of the High Priestess seemed to grow younger, purer, and Caillean knew that if she looked, she would have seen the lines of age fading from Lhiannon’s face, until the beauty of the Maiden Goddess shone from her eyes.
But by then, the same power was filling her own heart.
“The flowers spring up in Thy footsteps; the earth grows green where Thou dost pass . . .” As she had so many times before, she allowed the rhythm of the rite to carry her to a place where there was only the Lady’s harmony.
On the morning of the Beltane festival, Eilan woke before dawn in the women’s house where she slept with her sisters. Eilan’s bed, a wooden frame strung with rawhide and covered with skins and fine woolen blankets, was built up against the sloping thatched roof, so close that she could reach up and touch it. Over the years she had widened a crack in the mud plastering to a chink through which she could peer. Outside, the light of an early summer dawn was just beginning to break.
With a sigh she lay back again, trying to remember her dreams. There had been something about the festival, and then the scene had changed. There had been an eagle there, she knew, and she had been a swan, and then, it seemed to her, the eagle had become a swan as well, and they had both flown away.
Little Senara still slumbered; she slept closest to the wall for she was still small enough to fall out of bed. Her sharp bent knees poked into Eilan’s side. Across the room Mairi, who had temporarily moved back in with her sisters until they learned what had happened to Rhodri, slept with her child; and on the outside Dieda, her loose pale hair scattered across her face, and her shift undone so that Eilan could see about her neck the chain that held Cynric’s ring.
Rheis and Bendeigid did not know yet that the two had plighted themselves to one another. The secrecy made Eilan uneasy. But they meant to announce it at this festival, and ask the family to begin the complex negotiations regarding dowry and settlements so that they could be wed. At least Cynric had no living kin, which would make it simpler.
The only other furniture in the room was a bench fixed against the wall and the oaken chest in which the girls kept their extra shifts and holiday garments. It had belonged to Rheis before she married, and she had always said that when Dieda was wed it would be a part of her dower. Eilan did not grudge her this, for another, equally fine one intended for Eilan was already taking shape at the hands of old Vab the joiner. And in due time there would be one for Senara. She had seen the oak planks rubbed until they shone, and the wooden pegs stained till they did not show.