“Be clear about this,” said Caillean clearly. “I did not send for you. And if it were my dying breath I would still deny that you have authority over the priestesses.”
“Woman!” Ardanos thundered. “What -?”
“And don’t you say ‘Woman!’ to me in that tone, as if they had nothing to do with you, as if your own mother had not been one,” Caillean retorted furiously. “Men who do not fear the Goddess -who are they to speak for Her?”
Ardanos grimaced and turned back to Lhiannon. “Well, you had better tell me what all this is about,” he said, none too gently. “It is for sure that I will not hear it from Caillean.”
This was not a good time for him to leave Deva, he thought in irritation. With the Governor away fighting in Caledonia, some of the local officials had begun to presume on their powers. He needed to be back where his agents could keep him informed, and if necessary he could use his contacts among the Romans to prevent trouble.
Lhiannon made an odd strangled sound, coughed, and tried again. “Eilan is pregnant by the Prefect’s son, and we do not know what to do.”
Ardanos looked at her in amazement, then his gaze traveled to Eilan. “Is this true?”
Eilan said in a low voice, “I always tell the truth.”
“Aye,” grunted Ardanos, his mind whirling with calculation. “I’ll give you that; you’re no liar, girl.”
She looked as if she would much rather have told him nothing at all. Caillean moved to her side and took her hand protectively. He felt the anger rising. Do these silly hens have any idea how devastating this could be? The very survival of the Forest House depended on maintaining the myth of their purity! They must be made to understand!
“Why do you ask me?” His words rang with all the power of bardic training. “You know the penalty as well as I. It is death for a sworn priestess to lie with any man except the Sacred King.”
Death. The word made a silence, even in the quiet of the room. Then Lhiannon moaned and Caillean moved quickly to catch her in her arms.
“You cruel, heartless old man!” she burst out. “And to think it is she who insisted on laying this before you!” She held the older woman against her, feeling for the pulse point at the neck. “Goddess! Her heart is leaping like a frightened horse! But you have not quite killed her, not this time.” She straightened as Lhiannon moaned and stirred. “You know her heart is weak. Would you like to try again?”
Ardanos bent over her. He said quietly, “She has only fainted; she will recover.” He felt more shaken than he had expected. “I did not know that it would upset her so.”
He helped Caillean to lift the old woman, surprised at how light she was beneath the robes, and lay her on the bed, raised a little on pillows so that she could breathe. Caillean poured a few drops of some potion into a cup of water and set it to the High Priestess’s lips. Ardanos saw the muscles of Lhiannon’s throat constrict as she swallowed, and after a few moments her eyelids fluttered open once more.
Her eyes are still beautiful, Ardanos thought in surprise, even now, when they are clouded by pain. He would grieve when death took her, but that knowledge could not be allowed to interfere with what he had to do.
“Not death,” she whispered. “Is there no other way?”
Ardanos glanced at Eilan, who sat huddled on her bench with her knuckles against her lips, staring at Lhiannon.
“I would say the same if it were my own daughter, Dieda. I thought at first that it was she —”
“Dieda doesn’t matter —” Lhiannon said more strongly. “We cannot let them hurt Eilan!”
“Of course not,” Caillean said soothingly. “Ardanos knows as well as you or I, that this penalty has never been exacted. After all, it is not as if this were an unknown thing.”
“Well,” Ardanos asked carefully, “what do you suggest we do?” It gave him a perverse satisfaction to see Caillean so subdued. Perhaps she would be less troublesome now.