Goddess, help me! her spirit cried. If You are there, Lady, and not just my delusion, show me how to do Your will!
Ardanos’s invocation ended, but the expectation of the crowd around her was building. As the smoke of the sacred herbs billowed from the fires, Eilan felt a Presence building up behind her.
Lady, I am in Your hands. With a sigh, Eilan allowed control to slip away. She had the sensation that soft arms were holding her, but at the same time she knew that her body was sitting up, and the One whose power now flowed through it was fixing Ardanos with a radiant smile.
Grandfather, she thought, be careful! Can you not see Who has come to you now? But he had turned to the people, and was leading them in the invocation, and she knew he could not see. Her awareness turned inward then. Goddess have mercy! her spirit cried. He works for the good of his people — give him the wisdom to do the right thing – for the sake of us all!
And in the silence of the place to which she had come, it seemed to her that there was a reply.
“Daughter, I care for all my children, even when they quarrel; and for all times, not only the one you are living through. My Light may be your darkness; and your winter the prelude to My spring. Will you accept this, that a greater good may come?”
“I will, but do not leave, me, for You are all I have,” she answered, and once more that Voice spoke within her.
“How could I leave you — do you not know I love you as you love your child?”
The Lady’s love surrounded her. Eilan allowed herself to sink into it as into her own mother’s arms. As if from a great distance she was aware of Ardanos’s questions. She remembered the answers he had told her to give, but they no longer seemed important. Knowledge came to her; she knew what she said in reply, and yet the Self who spoke those words, this time in the language of the people, was not the Eilan she knew.
Eilan could not tell how long it went on. In that state where she rested now there was no time at all. And yet a time did come when she heard her own name called. She moaned and tried to turn away. Why should she return? But the cool air with which they were fanning her and the drops of water that splashed her face and hands could not be ignored. They drew her back into her body once more.
She shuddered and gasped, and suddenly she was herself, Eilan, once more, looking at the awed faces of the people around her with wide eyes.
Ardanos was instructing the people to depart in peace. There was almost a hint of smugness in the satisfaction that filled his smile.
He does not understand, Eilan thought then. He thinks he did it all . . .But if the Arch-Druid did not understand the power of the Goddess he said he served, it was not for her to enlighten him. She could only trust that the Lady knew Her own business, and would continue to watch over them.
Gaius spent the first months of his marriage fighting the awareness that it was based upon a lie. He suspected that Julia was more enamored of being married than she was of him, but she was cheerful and affectionate, and as long as he was reasonably attentive, she seemed satisfied with his companionship. He could only thank the gods for the innocence, or perhaps the lack of emotional depth, which prevented her from realizing a relationship between a man and a woman ought to be a great deal more.
Licinius, who believed that a young couple should not be separated in the first year of their marriage, had arranged for Gaius to serve as an aedile in charge of government buildings in Londinium, which would give him some of the experience in public service necessary to advance his career. At first he had protested lack of background, and wondered if his father-in-law had got him the job simply so that Julia could continue to keep house for him, but he found that although his staff of slaves and freedmen could do the work, they needed the authority of a man of status to deal with the rest of the government. Presently, he realized that a childhood spent listening to his father deal with the problems of maintaining a major fortress had prepared him for his new responsibilities quite well.