Caillean plucked a few thyme leaves from the bed Lads had growing in the inner court and rubbed them between her fingers, breathing deeply as the sweet scent hung in the moist morning air. Thyme was good for headaches, and perhaps it would clear hers. Today, at least, her womb had ceased the painful intermittent bleeding that had plagued her all summer, and perhaps this contact with the earth could ease the nagging sense of dread that had haunted her as well.
From the privies on the other side of the wall she could hear someone retching. She waited, wondering who had been awakened at such an early hour. Presently she glimpsed a figure in a white shift slipping through the archway as if she feared to be seen. For the first time in weeks Caillean’s inner senses awakened and she knew who it must be, and with a sudden certainty, what was wrong with her.
“Eilan, come here!” It was the priestess-voice of command, and the girl was too well trained not to obey. With lagging footsteps, Eilan returned, and Caillean noted the pinched cheeks and the new fullness in the girl’s breasts. Her own troubles must have been more distracting than she realized, she thought bitterly.
“How long have you been this way? Since Beltane?” she asked. Eilan stared at her, her face contorting. “My poor child!” Caillean held out her arms and suddenly Eilan was clinging to her and sobbing.
“Oh, Caillean, Caillean! I thought I was ill . . . I thought I was going to die!”
Caillean stroked her hair. “Have you had your courses during this time?” Eilan shook her head. “Then it is life, not death, you are carrying,” she said, and felt the betraying release of tension in the thin body beneath her hands.
Her own eyes filled with tears. This was a dreadful thing, certainly, and yet she could not help feeling a desperate envy, remembering how her own body was betraying her now and not knowing if what had come to her was only the end of the fertility she had never used or the end of her life indeed.
“Who has done this to you, my darling?” she murmured into the girl’s soft hair. “No wonder you have been so quiet. Why didn’t you tell me? You cannot have thought I would not understand!”
Eilan looked up with red-rimmed eyes, and Caillean remembered that this girl did not lie. “It was not rape -”
Caillean sighed. “Then I suppose it was that Roman boy.” It was not a question and Eilan nodded mutely. Caillean sighed again and looked off into space. “Poor child,” she said at last. “If I had known at once, something might have been contrived, but you are three months along. We will have to tell Lhiannon, you know.”
“What will she do to me?” Eilan quavered.
“I don’t know,” Caillean said. “Nothing very much, I imagine.” There was an ancient law that demanded death for a priestess who broke her vows, but surely they would never apply that to Eilan. “Probably you will only be sent away – you were prepared for that, I suppose. But I am sure that is the worst,” she added.
And if they try to punish her more harshly, thought Caillean with a spurt of her old energy, they will have to reckon with me!
“You wretch, you dirty little animal!” cried Lhiannon. A sudden purple suffused the High Priestess’s cheeks and Eilan recoiled. “Who did this to you?”
Eilan shook her head, her eyes burning.
“You did this on purpose – you did not scream? Traitor! Did you mean to shame us all, or did you simply not think? Rutting like an animal in heat, after all our care for you —” Lhiannon sucked in breath, gasping horribly.
Caillean had suspected there would be a scene when the High Priestess was told, but it was worse than she expected. Lhiannon’s health and temper had become increasingly precarious, and Caillean could see this was one of her bad days. But by then it was too late. Suddenly she slapped the girl, shouting, “Do you think this was a holy passion? You are no better than a whore!