It took an effort for Caillean to collect herself, to reach out to the energy that was pulsing around her and gather it in, holding in her mind the image of the sick woman they were working for. She could see it now, a mist of power that grew brighter with every breath.
Caillean drew the Power inward, projecting upon it the image until they could all see it, shimmering above the pile of stones. The sound built until it seemed she could bear it no longer. Her arms were rising – all their arms were lifting unbidden as the Power fountained upward in a pillar of light, a surge of pure sound to send strength to the sick woman. And then it was gone. They settled back, breathing as if they had been running, knowing they had succeeded.
They raised the Power twice more that night for healing, and a last time, gently, to replenish some of the energy they had lost. When it was over, a measure of peace had returned even to Dieda’s eyes. And then, with a final murmur of thanks, they filed back to the Forest House for food and bed. But Caillean, tired as she was, went to the separate building where the High Priestess had her chambers to tell Eilan how it had gone.
“You do not have to tell me —” said Eilan as Caillean came into her room. “Even from here I could hear you, I could feel the Power.” The older woman looked lit up from within.
“It’s true, Eilan. This is the work we were meant for! When I was a child serving Lhiannon, this is the kind of thing I dreamed of, but then the Druids penned us up here, and the vision was lost. With all my knowledge, I did not know how to find it again until you showed me the way.”
“You would have found it . . .” Eilan sat up in bed and forced a smile. She still felt out of sorts and achy, as she often did at this time of the moon. More and more, she had become convinced that in ages past Caillean had been one of the greatest of priestesses. So much of what they were doing now in the Forest House came in spurts of certainty, as if they were not inventing it, but remembering. She supposed that she herself had been a priestess too, but while she had vision, there were times when Caillean was able to summon up an amazing power. “I have often thought that you should have been chosen High Priestess instead of me.”
Caillean gave her a quick glance. “Once, I would have thought so too,” she said. “I do not want it now.”
“Sensible woman! But none the less, if you had to, you could do it.” There was more silver now in Caillean’s dark hair, thought Eilan, but otherwise she looked little different from the woman who had delivered Mairi’s child ten years ago.
“Well I don’t have to do it now,” Caillean said briskly. “Only to get a few decisions out of you! We have had a rather odd request. A strange fellow from that Roman sect they call Christians wants to live in the old hut in the forest. He calls himself a hermit. Shall I say he may stay there or send him away?”
“He may as well,” said Eilan, considering. “I don’t intend to send any more of our women there for punishment, nor, I suppose, do you, and the Ravens have all found new hiding places.” It gave her a pang to think of a stranger living in the place where she had borne and suckled her child, but there was no point in sentimentality.
“Very well,” said Caillean. “And if Ardanos objects I can point to the precedent set when they let Christians build the chapel of the white thorn on the Isle of Apples below the Sacred Well.”
“Have you been there?” Eilan asked.
“Long ago, when I was much younger,” Caillean replied. “The Summer Country is a strange land, all marsh and lake and meadow. If there’s any rain at all, the Tor turns to an island. Mist lies on the land sometimes so that you think the next turning will bring you to the Otherworld; and then a flare of sunlight cuts through the clouds and you see the holy Tor with its ring of stones.”